The Darrow Enigma Part 15

You will, I trust, a.s.sume I had enough interest in her father to palliate my conduct in a measure. Be generous in your judgment.

How do you know you will not be in the same predicament? Think of it! A young woman beautiful beyond my feeble powers of description; her eyes of a heavenly blue; her luxuriant hair like a ma.s.s of spun gold; her complexion matched to the tint and transparency of the blush rose--and such a throat! From it came a voice as musical as the unguided waters when Winter rushes down the hills in search of Spring. Never you mind, that's the way I felt about it, and, if you had been in my place, you'd have been just as bad as I; come, now, you know you would. Suppose I was a bachelor, and almost old enough to be her father. Does that help matters any? Is the heart less hungry because it has been starved?

Just look at your history. When nuns have relapsed from other-worldliness to this-worldliness how have they been? I'll tell you. They have been just a round baker's dozen times worse than they would have been if they had never undertaken to cheat Nature. Look at the thing fairly. I don't expect to dodge any blame that I deserve, yet I do want all the palliating circ.u.mstances duly noted. Many months have pa.s.sed since then, and yet the thought of that sweet girl sends a thrill all over me. I wonder where she is now? I feel that we shall meet again some time, and perhaps you will see her yourself. If so, you will see that I couldn't be expected to withstand any such temptation.

On these visits Maitland and I talked but very little, and while I was spying nothing of interest occurred--i. e., nothing of interest to him--or, if it did, things of interest to me prevented my observing it. On several occasions he alluded vaguely to things he had learned which he said he should not divulge even to me until the proper time came.

Things went on in this way for about two weeks. I visited Maitland daily, and daily the little lady in the next room wove her spell around me. If, as I am inclined to believe, thinking a great deal of a person is much the same thing as thinking of a person a great deal, I must have adored her.

One night, about a fortnight after Maitland's change of abode, I found Alice in a terrible state of excitement upon my arrival home.

She met me at the door, and said Gwen needed my attention at once.

I did not stop to hear further particulars, but hastened to the sitting-room, where Gwen lay upon the lounge. She was in a stupor from which it seemed impossible to arouse her. In vain I tried to attract her attention. Her fixed, staring eyes looked through me as if I had been gla.s.s. I saw she had received a severe shock, and so, after giving her some medicine, I took Alice aside and asked her what had happened. She said that Gwen and she had been sitting sewing by the window all the afternoon, and talking about Maitland's recent discoveries. At about five o'clock the Evening Herald was brought in as usual. She, Alice, had picked it up to glance over the news, when, in the column headed "Latest," she had seen the heading: "The Darrow Mystery Solved!" This she had read aloud, without thinking of the shock the unexpected announcement might give Gwen, when the sudden pallor that had overspread the young woman's face had brought her to her senses, and she had paused. Her companion, however, had seized the paper when she had hesitated and, in a fever of excitement, had read in a half-audible voice:

John Darrow was murdered. --The a.s.sa.s.sin's inability to pay a gambling debt the motive for the crime. --Extraordinary work of a French detective!--The net--

But at this juncture the paper had dropped from Gwen's hands, and she had fallen upon the floor before Alice could reach her.

THE EPISODE OF THE TELLTALE THUMB

CHAPTER I

When Disaster is bigger than its victim its bolt o'erlaps the innocent.

It was some time after Gwen had fallen before Alice had succeeded in getting her upon the lounge, and then all her efforts to revive her had failed. She had remained in the same nerveless stupor as that in which I had found her. I asked Alice if she knew why this announcement had produced such an effect upon Gwen, and she returned my question with a look of amazement.

"Have you forgotten Gwen's promise to her father in this matter?"

she replied. "Has she not already told you that she should keep that promise, whatever the sacrifice cost her? She is, therefore, entirely at the mercy of this M. G.o.din, and she is also obliged to advise him of this fact, if she would carry out her father's wishes.

Is this nothing for a sensitive nature like hers? If she has any love for anyone else she must crush it out of her heart, for she is M. G.o.din's now. Surely, Ned, you are not so stupid as your question would indicate."

"We won't discuss that," I rejoined. "Let us go to Gwen and get her to bed."

This done, and the sufferer made easy for the night, I glanced at the article which had so upset her, and read its sensational "scare-head." In full it ran as follows:

THE DARROW MYSTERY SOLVED!

JOHN DARROW WAS MURDERED!

The a.s.sa.s.sin's Inability to Pay a Gambling Debt the Motive for the Crime.

EXTRAORDINARY WORK OF A FRENCH DETECTIVE!

The Net so Completely Woven About the Alleged a.s.sa.s.sin That it is Thought He Will Confess.

The Arrest Entirely Due to the Una.s.sisted Efforts of M. LOUIS G.o.dIN!

I did not stop to read the article, but seized my hat and hastened at once to Maitland.

A copy of the Herald lay upon his table, advising me that he was already acquainted with the strange turn affairs had taken. He told me that he had heard the newsboys in the street calling out "The Darrow Mystery Solved!" and had at once rushed out and bought a paper.

I informed him of Gwen's condition and he wished to go to her at once, but I told him he must wait until the morrow, as she had already retired, and was, I had reason to hope, fast asleep. I rea.s.sured him with the information that a night's sleep and the medicine I had given her would probably put Gwen in full possession of her faculties. Having thus satisfied his fears, I thought it fitting he should satisfy mine. I asked him what had become of the young woman in the next room. He did not reply, but quietly led me into his camera obscura that I might see for myself. She was sitting at the table in the centre of the room, with her face buried in her hands. I watched her for a long time, and the only movement I could discern was that occasioned ever and anon by a convulsive catching of her breath. The pet monkey was nowhere to be seen.

"They took her father away early this morning," Maitland said, "and, after the first shock, she sank into this condition. She has not moved since. When I see the despair her father's arrest has occasioned I am almost tempted to rejoice that I had no hand in it, and yet--well, there's no great harm without some small good--no one will say now that John Darrow took his own life, eh? What do you think our friends, Osborne and Allen, will say now? They were so sure their theory was the only tenable one. Ah, well! we should ever hold ourselves in readiness for surprises."

"And for emergencies too," I continued; "and this strikes me as being very like one. That young woman needs attention, if I am any judge of appearances, and I'm going in there." "No use, Doc,"

Maitland replied, "the door is locked, and she either cannot or will not open it. I knocked there for an hour, hoping to be able to comfort her. It's no use for you to try, she won't open the door." "Won't, eh! then I'll go through it!" I exclaimed, in a tone that so amazed Maitland that he seized me by the shoulders and gazed fixedly into my face. "It's all right, George," I said, answering his look. "I'm going in there, and I'm not going to be at all delicate about my entrance either."

He looked at me a little doubtfully, but I could see that, on the whole, he was pleased with my decision. I went into the hall and knocked loudly on the door. There was no response. I kicked it till I must have been heard all over the house, but still there was no response. It was now clear I should not enter by invitation, so I went up four or five stairs of the flight opposite the door and from that position sprang against it. I am not, if you remember, a heavy man, but momentum is MV and I made up in the 'V' what I lacked in the 'M.' The door opened inwardly, and I tore it from its hinges and precipitated both myself and it into the centre of the apartment.

As I look back upon this incident I regard it as the most precipitous thing I ever did in the way of a professional visit. If the young lady started at all, she did so before I had gathered myself together sufficiently to notice it. I spoke to her, but she gave no evidence of hearing me. I raised her head. Her eyes were wide open and stared full at me, yet in such a blank way that I knew she did not hear me. The contraction of the brows, the knotted appearance of the forehead, and the rigor of the face told me she was under an all-but-breaking tension. There were tear-stains from tears which long since had ceased to flow. The fire of fever had dried them up.

I regarded her case as far more desperate than Gwen's and determined to lose no time in taking charge of it. It seemed to me so like sacrilege to touch her without an explanation that, though I knew she could not understand me, I said to her, as I took her in my arms.

"You are ill, and I must take you away from here."

She was just blossoming into womanhood and her form had that exquisite roundness and grace which it is the particular function of fas.h.i.+on to annihilate. If I held her closely, I think all bachelors will agree that it was because this very roundness made her heavy; if I did not put her down immediately I reached Maitland's room, it is because, as a doctor of medicine, I have my own ideas as to how a couch should be fixed before a patient is laid upon it.

Maitland may say what he pleases, but I know how important these things are in sickness, and you know, quick as he is in most things, George has moments when his head is so much in the clouds that he doesn't know what he is doing, and moves as if he were in a dream set to dirge music. He kept telling me to "put her on the couch!

--put her on the couch!" To this day, he fondly believes that when I finally did release her, it was as the result of his advice, rather than because he had at last made a suitable bed for her.

I sent Maitland for some medicine, which I knew would relax the tension she was under and make it possible for her to sleep. When I had administered this, Maitland and I talked the matter over and we decided to take her at once to my house, where, with Gwen, she could share the watchful care of my sister Alice. This we did, though I was not without some misgivings as to Gwen's att.i.tude in the matter when she should recover sufficiently to know of it. I expressed my doubts to Maitland and he replied: "Give yourself no uneasiness on that score; Miss Darrow is too womanly to visit the sins of a guilty father upon an unoffending daughter, and, besides, this man,--it seems that his real name is Latour, not Cazenove,-- has a right to be judged innocent until his guilt is proved."

I found this to be sage counsel, for, when Gwen was able to understand what I had done, she exhibited no antipathy toward the new member of our household, but, on the contrary, became exceedingly interested in her. I was especially glad of this, not only on account of Miss Latour, the suspect's daughter, but also because the one thing Gwen needed above all others was something to challenge her interest. She had again relapsed into the old, state of pa.s.sive endurance, wherein nothing seemed to reach her consciousness. Her actions appeared to flow more from her nerve-centres than from her mind. She moved like an automaton. There is scarcely any condition of which I am more fearful than this. The patient becomes wax in one's hands. She will do anything without a murmur, or as willingly refrain from anything. She simply is indifferent to life and all that therein is. Is it any wonder, then, that I rejoiced to see Gwen interest herself in poor Jeannette? It was a long time, however, before Jeannette repaid this interest with anything more than a dreamy, far-off gaze, that refused to focus itself upon anything. As time wore on, however, I noticed with relief that there was a faint expression of wonder in her look, and, as this daily grew stronger, I knew she was beginning to realise her novel surroundings and to ask herself if she were still dreaming. Yet she did not speak; she seemed to fear the sound of her own voice and to determine to solve, unaided, the mystery confronting her. I requested that no one question her or make any attempt to induce her to break silence, for I knew the time would come when she would do so of her own free will. As it happened, her first words were spoken to me, and, as my writing this recalls the event, a thrill of pleasurable pain pa.s.ses through me. You may think this foolish, the more so, indeed, when you learn that nothing was said to warrant such a feeling, but I must urge upon you not to let your satisfied heart set itself up as judge in bachelor regions.

I had been mixing some medicine for her and was holding the cup to her lips that she might drink the draught. She laid her hand upon my wrist and gently put the cup aside, saying, as she gazed thoughtfully at me: "Did you not bring me here?" "Yes," I replied.

She reached for the cup, and drinking its contents, sank back upon the pillows with a half-satisfied look upon her face, as if my reply had cleared up one mystery, but left many more to be solved.

From this day Jeannette steadily improved, and within two weeks she and Gwen had come to a very good understanding. It was plainly evident that Alice, too, came in for a very good share of the little French girl's love. They did not exchange confidences to any great degree, for, as Maitland used to say, Alice was one of those rare, sweet women who say but little, but seem to act upon all around them by a sort of catalysis, sweetening the atmosphere by their very presence.

CHAPTER II

Belief, though it be as ample as the ocean, does not always similarly swell in crystallising. It has, however, its point of maximum density, but this, not infrequently, is also ifs point of minimum knowledge.

During all these days Gwen was gaining rapidly. Maitland came to visit us almost every night, and he told Gwen that he did not feel altogether certain that, in arresting M. Latour, the law had secured her father's real a.s.sa.s.sin. It would be necessary to account for, he told her, some very singular errors in his early calculations if M. Latour was the man.

"When first I took up my abode under the same roof with him," he said, "I had no doubt that we had at last run down our man. Now, although another detective has come to the same conclusion, I myself have many misgivings, and you may be a.s.sured, Miss Darrow, that I shall lose no time in getting these doubts answered one way or the other. At present you may say to your friend Jeannette that I am straining every nerve in her father's behalf."

Why all this should so please Gwen I was at a loss to comprehend, but I could not fail to see that it did please her greatly. She had been the most anxious of us all to see her father's murderer brought to justice, and now, when through the efforts of M. G.o.din, a man stood all but convicted of the crime, she was pleased to hear Maitland, whose efforts to track Latour she had applauded in no equivocal way, say that he should spare no pains to give the suspect every possible chance to prove his innocence. There was certainly a reason, whatever it might have been, for Gwen's att.i.tude in this matter, for that young woman was exceptionally rational in all things. Nothing of especial moment occurred between this time and the beginning of the trial. Maitland, for the most part, kept his own counsel and gave us little information other than a hint that he still thought there was a chance of clearing M. Latour.

With this end in view he had become an a.s.sociate attorney with Jenkins in order the better to conduct M. Latour's case along the lines which seemed to him the most promising. I asked him on one occasion what led him to entertain a hope that Latour could be cleared and he replied: "A good many things." "Well, then," I rejoined, "what are some of them?" He hesitated a moment and then replied laughingly: "You see I hate to acknowledge the falsity of my theories. I said shortly after the murder was committed that I thought the a.s.sa.s.sin was short and probably did not weigh over one hundred and thirty-five pounds; that he most likely had some especial reason for concealing his footprints, and that he had a peculiarity in his gait. I felt tolerably sure then of all this, but now it turns out that M. Latour is six feet tall in his stockings, and thin; and that, emaciated as he is, he tips the scales at one hundred and fifty pounds by reason of his large frame. His feet are as commonplace as--as yours, Doc, and his gait as regular as--mine.

Is it to be expected that I am going to give up all my pet illusions without a struggle?"

When the hour for the trial arrived Gwen insisted on accompanying us to the court-room. She had a great deal of confidence in George and felt sure that, as he expressed a strong doubt of the prisoner's guilt, he would triumph in proving him innocent. She determined, therefore, to be present at the trial, even before her attendance should be required as a witness.

M. Latour, when he was led into the prisoner's box, seemed to have aged greatly during his incarceration. It was with a marked effort that he arose and straightened himself up as the indictment was read to him. When the words: "Are you guilty or not guilty?" were addressed to him every eye was turned upon him and every ear listened to catch the first sound of his voice, but no sound came. The question was repeated more loudly, "Are you guilty or not guilty?"

Like one suddenly awakened from a reverie M. Latour started, turned toward his questioner, and in a full, firm voice replied: "Guilty!"

I was so dumfounded that I could offer Gwen no word of comfort to alleviate this sudden shock. Maitland and G.o.din seemed about the only ones in the court-room who were not taken off their feet, so to speak, by this unexpected plea, and George was at Gwen's side in a moment and whispered something to her which I could not hear, but which I could see had a very beneficial effect upon her. We had all expected a long, complicated trial, and here the whole matter was reduced to a mere formality by M. Latour's simple confession, "Guilty!" Is it any wonder, therefore, that we were taken aback?

While we were recovering from our surprise at this sudden turn of affairs, Maitland was engaged in private conversation with the Judge, with whom, he afterward told me, he had become well acquainted both in his own cases and in those of other lawyers requiring his services as an expert chemist. He never told me what pa.s.sed between them, nor the substance of any of the brief interviews which followed with the prosecuting attorney, his a.s.sociate counsel, and other legal functionaries. All I know is that when the case was resumed M.

Latour's senior counsel, Jenkins, kept carefully in the background, leaving the practical conduct of the case in Maitland's hands.