One of My Sons Part 13

"I have just learned how my dear girl watches over her uncle's slumbers. You are too careful of me; I had rather have you sleep. George's room is on this floor; let him come and see how I am in the night, if you are so uneasy."

"George would never wake up without a.s.sistance," said she.

"I could not trust you to his tender care, well meaning as he is."

"Leighton, then. He's a light sleeper. I have often heard you say that you have heard him pacing the floor of his room as late as three in the morning."

"But he sleeps better now. Alfred might stop on his way in; but Alfred does not stay out as late as he used to. He comes in quite regularly since you have been ill."

Were her eyes quite true? Yes, they were as true as the sky they mirror. I grasped her hand and ventured upon a vital question.

"Who was up at the same time you were last night? I am sure I heard a man's step in the hall, just about the time you relighted the gas."

"Did you know about the gas?" she asked. "I found it smelling dreadfully. But I didn't encounter anyone in the hall. I guess you imagined that, uncle."

"Perhaps!" was my muttered reply, as I wondered how I was to ask the next question. "When did you go upstairs?" I finally inquired.

"Oh, right away. I didn't wait a minute after I found you quiet. It was cold in the halls--Hewson had left the sky-light open, and my trip after a match chilled me."

"Was your cousin Leighton's door open?" I instantly inquired. "Or did you hear any door shut after you went up?"

She leaned over me and looked anxiously into my face.

"Why do you ask so many questions, uncle, and in so hard a voice? Would there have been any harm in my cousins being up, or in my running across one of them in the hall?"

"Not ordinarily. But last night----"

Here my weakness found vent. I must share my secret, if only as a safeguard; I could not breathe under the dreadful weight imposed upon me by this uncertainty. And she knew I had some dreadful tale to tell; this I was a.s.sured of by the white line creeping into view about her lips, and by the convulsive clasp with which she answered my clutch.

Forgetting her youth, ignoring all the resolves I had made in the secret watches of the night, I drew her ear down to my mouth and gasped into it the few tell-tale sentences which revealed the dishonour of our house. I caught the thrill of anguish which went through her as I made plain the attempt which had been made upon my life, and never shall I forget her eyes as she slowly drew back at the completion of my tale, and surveyed me in the silent suspense which seemed to mirror forth my own deep heart-question: _Which?_

Sons, I could not answer the demand made by that look, nor can I answer it now. You all came in soon after, and each and all of you had something to say about the mischance of the night which had so visibly affected me. And I did not dare to read your eyes. Brought face to face with you, I seemed to shrink from, rather than seek for, the settling of this dreadful question. Perhaps because I regard you with equal affection. Perhaps because your mother's picture was visible over your heads, and it seemed like sacrilege to her memory to consider such a question under her loving and trusting eyes. At all events you left me with my mind still in doubt, to confront Hope again, and with her the wretched future which the night's experience had unfolded before us both. I found her filled with a confidence I could not easily share. She believed in the integrity of the man she held dearest, but she would not tell me which of you she thus loved. And I could only guess. But even this belief weakened a little as we talked together, and I soon saw by the arguments she used that peace and certainty would never be hers again as long as a doubt remained as to which of her cousins had conceived and perpetrated this criminal act. As for me, the future holds no comfort. I shall give each of you a thousand dollars to-night in celebration of my anniversary of marriage, and perhaps this will awaken the conscience of the one who loves my money better than my life. Then, though I shall not change my will, I shall publish abroad that I have had losses which only a fortunate speculation can make good, and see if by these means the cupidity which came near costing me my life may not serve to insure me a sufficiently prolonged existence for me to separate in my own mind the one black sheep from the white.

But if these measures fail, if I am doomed to fall a victim to the unknown hand which I must henceforth see lifted over my life, if Hope's watchfulness and my own vigilance cannot prevent the repet.i.tion of an act which, if once determined upon, cannot fail of fulfilment in a house like this, then this letter read by you all in concert must prove the punishment of the guilty one. And since none of you will read these lines except under these circ.u.mstances of death and crime, I hereby charge that guilty one to speak, and as he hopes to escape my curse and the wrath of an outraged Deity, to avow his crime in her presence and in that of the two brothers he will thus exonerate.

Having done this, he may take or leave his portion of the estate. I shall be satisfied, and the G.o.d whose commandments he has doubly defied may forget to avenge a crime forgiven by its object.

To my two sons whose filial instincts have never been thus disturbed, I leave my blessing. May all happiness be theirs, whether this does or does not include the love of the dear girl whose future I have thus endeavoured to clear.

ARCHIBALD GILLESPIE.

I have inserted this letter here that you may understand the situation which ensued upon its perusal by the three brothers.

We, who had not read it, were simply startled to note the way in which these three young men drew back as from a common centre, as the last words fell from Leighton's well-nigh paralysed lips.

Then Alfred, in a rush of ferocious pa.s.sion, bounded forward again, and striding up to George, shouted out in an awful voice, "_You_ are the man!" and struck him without mercy to the floor.

IX

THE CLOCK THAT HAD RUN DOWN

In the commotion which followed, I noted two things. First, that at sight of this violence from one brother to the other, Leighton drew back without offering a.s.sistance to the one or rebuke to the other.

Secondly, that Alfred's show of anger ceased as soon as it had thus expended itself, and that his next thought was for Hope.

But he was not allowed to approach her. The coroner now interfered with his authority, and all words were forbidden between these members of a disrupted household, till the police had finished an investigation, which had now become as serious as the crime which had called it forth.

The search was for the little phial which had held the acid, and when it was generally understood that the investigation would not cease till this was found, Miss Meredith, who had clung to me as her one stay in this overturning of every other natural support, asked me in agitated tones if I thought her cousins would be subjected to personal search. As no other course was open to the police after the direct accusation which had just been made by the infuriated Alfred, I answered in the affirmative; whereupon she attempted to flee the place, saying she could not endure to see them subjected to such humiliation.

But here Alfred, as if divining her thoughts, offered his person to Mr. Gryce with the remark:

"I have nothing to conceal. Look through my pockets, if you wish. You will find nothing to reward your pains. _I_ am not the villain."

A growl of anger, bridled but concentrated, came from the other side of the room, and I caught a sudden glimpse of George, quivering under the restraining hands of Dr. Bennett and Sweet.w.a.ter, in a mad attempt to reach his brother, whom he seemed to curse between his teeth.

"If you search him, you must do the same to me," were the words with which he seasoned this struggle. "You will find nothing more incriminating on me than on him; probably less, for my pockets are always open--while his----" A gnash of his teeth finished these almost inarticulate phrases. He was not as easily roused as his brother, but more tenacious in his pa.s.sions, and less readily appeased.

"Peace, there! You shall both be satisfied," interposed a businesslike voice. In face of these open accusations, the coroner felt himself relieved from the embarra.s.sment which had hitherto restrained him, and made no further effort to hide his suspicions.

Miss Meredith, who unconsciously to herself had drawn me as far as the drawing-room door in her efforts to escape the disquieting scene she had herself precipitated, paused as these words left the coroner's lips, and, yielding to the terrible fascination of the moment, caught my arm, and clinging thus with both hands, turned her eyes again upon the men under whose roof she had eaten, slept, and loved; ay, loved, as I knew by the tension of her body, communicated to me by the pressure of her hands.

Suddenly that pressure was removed. Her hands had flown to her eyes, shutting out the spectacle she could no longer confront. Nor was it easy for me to look on unmoved, or view with even an appearance of equanimity the scene before me.

I have not mentioned Leighton. He had not come forward with the other two, but he allowed his pockets to be searched without a protest when his turn came, though it was very evident that the proceeding caused him more suffering and a keener sensation of disgrace than it did the other two. Was this on account of the superior sensitiveness of his nature, or because he shrunk with a proud man's shame from the publicity entailed upon the anomalous articles which were drawn from his inner pockets? When some few minutes later my eyes fell on these objects lying piled on the library table, I marvelled over the character of a man who could gather and retain in one place a small prayer-book, a lock of woman's hair, the programme of some common music hall, and a photograph which after one glance I instinctively turned face downwards, lest it should fall under the eye of his cousin, whose delicacy could not fail to be hurt by it.

The phial had not been found on any of the young gentlemen.

When Miss Meredith became aware that the ordeal was over, she let her hands drop, and stepped hastily into the drawing-room. I did not follow her, but remained in the doorway watching the detectives as they moved from room to room in the search which was now being extended to all parts of the house. As I saw these men pa.s.s so quietly but with such an air of authority into rooms where a few hours before they would have hesitated to put foot even upon the genial owner's express invitation, I experienced such a realisation of the abyss into which this. .h.i.therto well-reputed family had fallen that I lost for a little while that sense of personal bitterness which the predictions evinced by Miss Meredith had so selfishly awakened.

But to continue the summary of events.

Seeing Leighton withdraw upstairs, followed by an officer in plain clothes, who had appeared on the scene as if by magic, I could not refrain from asking why he was allowed to separate himself from the others, and was much moved at being informed that he had gone up to sit by his child's bed, that child who of all in the house had found her wonted rest.

That he could calm himself down to such a task under the eye of one who could have little sympathy with his feelings, whether they were those of outraged innocence or self-accusing guilt, struck me as the most pathetic exhibition of self-control I had ever known; and more than once during the busy hour that followed, I was visited by fleeting visions of this silent man, sitting out the night under the watchful eye of one who moved if he so much as lowered his head to kiss the only cheek likely to smile upon him on the morrow as it had smiled upon him to-day.

That the search for the missing phial was likely to be a long-continued one soon became apparent to everyone. Two men who had carried the investigation into the room where the servants had been shut up since early evening, came back with the report that nothing had come to light in that quarter. At the same time two more returned from above with a similar report in regard to the sleeping-rooms of the three brothers. Sweet.w.a.ter and Gryce, who had spent the last half-hour in the dining-room, appeared to have an equally unsatisfactory tale to tell, and I was wondering what move would now be made, when I intercepted a glance from the coroner cast in the direction of the drawing-room, and realised that the law was no respecter of persons and that she, she too, might be called upon to give proof of not having this tell-tale article upon her person.

The prospect of such an indignity offered to one I regarded with more than pa.s.sing admiration unnerved me to such an extent that I was hardly myself when Dr. Frisbie advanced upon me with this remark:

"I regret the necessity, Mr. Outhwaite; but the emergencies of the case demand the same compliance on your part as on that of the other gentlemen found upon this scene of crime. It is needless to say that we have the utmost confidence in your integrity, but you were here when Mr. Gillespie died, and have been close to a certain member of this family many times since--and, in short, it is a form which you as a lawyer will recognise and----"

"No apologies," I prayed, recalling the one son of Mr. Gillespie who had not been on the scene of crime at the time of his father's death.

An intelligent glance from the coroner convinced me that he was thinking of him too. Indeed, he seemed to be more than willing to have me understand that he exacted this thorough search in order to fix the crime on Leighton. For if the phial was not to be found anywhere in the house, the necessary conclusion must be that it had been carried out of it by the one person known to have left it during the critical half-hour preceding Mr. Gillespie's death.

"I understand your thoughts," quoth the coroner, who seemed to read my face like an open book. "The phial may have been smashed on the sidewalk or thrown into some refuse barrel. But that would be the unwisest thing a guilty man could do. For its odour is unmistakable, and once it is found by the men I will set looking for it at daybreak--Well, what now?"

Sweet.w.a.ter was whispering in his ear.