At the Mercy of Tiberius Part 54

As the attorneys came closer, or stepped back from the door, the images seemed to vary in distinctness, and viewed from two angles they became invisible.

Mr. Churchill stared blankly; Mr. Dunbar's gaze was riveted on the face of the burglar, and he took his underlip between his teeth, as was his habit in suppressing emotion.

"Of course there is some infernal trick about this; but how do you account for it? It is beyond Bedney's sleight of hand," said the District Solicitor.

"I think I understand how it came here. Bedney, go around and open the library door leading into this room, and loop back the curtain for a moment."

"No, sir, Mars Lennox. Forty railroad ingines couldn't pull me in there alive. I wouldn't dar tamper with ole Marster's ghost; not for all the money in the bank. Go yourself; I doesn't budge on no sech bizness as prying and spying amongst the sperrits. It would fling me into a fit."

"You miserable coward. Is the house open? Where is the key of this room?"

"Hanging on the horseshoe under my chimbly board. I'll fetch it and unlock the front door, so you kin git in, and hold your inquess inside."

"Will you go, Churchill, or shall I?"

"What is your idea?"

"To ascertain whether the images are on the gla.s.s, as I believe, and if they can be seen without the background. Stand just here--and watch.

When I pull back the curtain, tell me the effect."

Some moments later, the red folds shook, swayed aside, the curtain was pushed out of sight on its bra.s.s rod. The interior of the apartment came into view, the articles of furniture, the face and figure of Mr.

Dunbar.

"Is it still there; do you see it?" shouted the latter.

"No. It vanished with the curtain. Drop it back. There! I see it. Now loop it. Gone again. Must be on the curtain," shouted the Solicitor, peering through the gla.s.s at his colleague.

Mr. Dunbar turned a key on the inside, pushed back a bolt, and threw open the door, which swung outward on the veranda. Then he carefully let fall the plush curtain once more.

"Do you see it?"

"No. A blank show. I can't see into the trick. Dunbar, change places with me and satisfy yourself."

The solicitor went inside, and Mr. Dunbar watched from the veranda a repet.i.tion of the experiment.

"That will do, Churchill. It is all plain enough now, but you cease to wonder at Bedney's superst.i.tious solution. You understand it perfectly, don't you?"

"No, I'll be hanged if I do! It is the queerest thing I ever saw."

"Do you recollect that there was a violent thunder-storm the night of the murder?"

"Since you mention it, I certainly recall it. Go on."

"All the witnesses testified that next morning this door was closed as usual, but the outside blinds were open, and the red curtain was looped back."

"Yes, I remember all that."

"The images are printed on the gla.s.s, and were photographed by a flash of lightning."

"I never heard of such a freak. Don't believe it."

"Nevertheless it is the only possible solution; and I know that several similar instances have been recorded. It is like the negative of a common photograph, brought out by a dark background; and do you notice the figures are invisible at certain angles? It is very evident the storm came up during the altercation that night, and electricity printed the whole scene on this door; stamping the countenance of the murderer, to help the instruments of justice. While the blinds were closed, and the curtain was looped aside, of course this wonderful witness could not testify; but Prince let down the folds just before his departure, and the moment Bedney opened the blinds, there lay the truthful record of the awful crime. Verily, the 'irony of fate!' An overwhelming witness for the defence, only eighteen months too late, to save a pure, beautiful life from degradation and ruin. Well may Bedney ask, 'where is your corpus delicti?' Alfred Churchill, I wish you joy of the verdict, you worked so hard to win."

Turning on his heel Mr. Dunbar walked the length of the veranda, and stood gazing gloomily across the tangled ma.s.s of the neglected rose garden, taking no cognizance of the garlands of bloom, seeing everywhere only that lithe elegant figure and Hyperion face of the man who reigned master of Beryl's heart.

The Solicitor leaned one shoulder against the door facing, and with his hands in his pockets, and his brows drawn into a pucker, pondered the new fact, and eyed the strange witness.

After a time, he approached his companion.

"If your hypothesis be correct, and it seems plausible, if science a.s.serts that electricity can photograph,--then certainly I am sorry, sorry enough for all I did in the trial; yet I cannot reproach myself, because I worked conscientiously; and the evidence was conclusive against the girl. The circ.u.mstantial coincidences were strong enough to have hung her. We all make mistakes, and no doubt I am responsible for my share; but thank G.o.d! reparation can be made! I will take the night train and see the Governor before noon to-morrow. The pardon must come now."

"Pardon! He cannot pardon a crime of which she now stands acquitted.

The only pardon possible, she may extend to those who sacrificed her.

His Excellency need exercise no prerogative of mercy; his aid is superfluous. Churchill, go in as soon as you can, and send out the Sheriff, with as many of the jurors as you can get together; and ask Judge Parkman to drive out this afternoon, and bring Stafford, the photographer, with him. Tell Doctor Graham I want to see him here, as he is an accomplished electrician. I will stay here and guard this door till all X---has seen it."

Winged rumor flew through the length and breadth of the town, and before sunset a human stream poured along the road leading to "Elm Bluff", overflowed the green lawn under the ancient poplars, surged across the terrace, and beat against the railing of the piazza. Men, women, children, lawyers, doctors, newspaper reporters, all pressing forward for a glimpse of the mysterious and weird witness, that, in the fulness of time, had arisen to reprove the world for a grievous and cruel wrong.

The hinges had been removed; the door was set up at a certain angle, carefully balanced against the hanging curtain; and there the curious crowd beheld, in a veritable vision of the dead, torn as it were from the darkness and silence of the grave, the secret of that stormy night, when unseen powers had solemnly covenanted in defence of trusting innocence.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

On Sat.u.r.day the regulations of prison discipline reduced the working hours much below the daily quota, and at two o'clock the ringing of the tower bell announced that the busy convicts of the various industrial rooms were allowed leisure during the remainder of the afternoon, to give place to the squad of sweepers and scrubbers, who flooded the floors and scoured the benches.

June heat had followed fast upon the balmy breath of May, and though the air at dawn was still iced with crystal dew, the sun that shone through the open windows of the little chapel, burned fiercely on the unpainted pine seats, the undraped reading-desk of the pulpit, the tarnished gilt pipes of the cabinet organ within the chancel railing.

On one of the front benches sat Iva Le Bougeois, with a pair of crutches resting beside her on the arm of the seat, and her hands folded in her lap. Recovering slowly from the paralysis resulting from diphtheria, she had followed Beryl into the chapel, and listened to the hymns the latter had played and sung. The glossy black head was bent in abject despondency upon her breast, and tears dripped over the smooth olive cheeks, but no sound escaped the trembling mouth, once so red and riotous, now drawn into curves of pa.s.sionate sorrow; and the topaz gleams that formerly flickered in her sullen hazel eyes were drowned in the gloom of dejection. For her, memory was an angel of wrath, driving her into the hideous Golgotha of the past, where b.l.o.o.d.y spectres gibbered; the present was a loathsome death in life, the future a nameless torturing horror. Helpless victim of her own outraged conscience, she seemed at times sinking into mental apathy more pitiable than that which had seized her physically; and the only solace possible, she found in the encouraging words uttered by the voice that had prayed for her during that long night of mortal agony, in the gentle pressure of the soft hand that often guided her tottering footsteps.

The organ stops had been pushed back, the musical echoes vibrated no longer; and the bare room, filled with garish sunshine, was so still that the drowsy droning of a bee high up on the dusty sash of the barred window, became monotonously audible.

Within the chancel and to the right of the pulpit, a large reversible blackboard had recently been placed, and on a chair in front of it stood Beryl, engrossed in putting the finishing touches to a sketch which filled the entire board; and oblivious for the moment of Eve Werneth's baby, who, having emptied her bottle of milk, had pulled herself up by the chair, and with the thumb of her right hand in her mouth, was staring up at the picture.

The lesson selected for the Sunday afternoon Bible cla.s.s, which Beryl had so successfully organized among a few of the female convicts, was the fifteenth chapter of Luke; and at the top of the blackboard was written in large letters: "Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost." She had drawn in the foreground the flock couched in security, rounded up by the collie guard in a gra.s.sy meadow; in the distance, overhanging a gorge, was a bald, precipitous crag, behind which a wolf crouched, watching the Shepherd who tenderly bore in his arms the lost wanderer. On the opposite side of the blackboard had been carefully copied the Gospel Hymn beginning:--

"There were ninety and nine that safely lay, In the shelter of the fold, But one was out on the hills away, Far off from the gates of gold--Away on the mountains wild and bare, Away from the tender Shepherd's care."

Mental processes are strangely dualistic, and it not unfrequently happens that while one is consciously intent upon a certain train of thought, some secret cunning current of a.s.sociation sets in vibration the coil of ideas locked in the chambers of memory, and long forgotten images leap forth, startling in their pristine vividness.

Absorbed by the text she was ill.u.s.trating, the artist insensibly followed lines she deemed imaginary, yet when the sketch was completed, the ensemble suddenly confronted her as a miniature reproduction of a very distant scene, that had gladdened her childish heart in the blessed by-gone. Far away from the beaten track of travel, in a sunny cleft of the Pistoian Apennines, she saw the white fleeces grouped under vast chestnuts, the flash of copper buckets plunged by two peasant women into a gurgling fountain, the curly head of Bertie bowed over the rude stone basin, as he gayly coaxed the bearers to let him drink from the beautiful burnished copper; the rocky terraces cut in the beetling cliffs above, where dark ruby-red oleanders flouted the sky with fragrant banners; and the pathetic face of a vagrant ewe tangled among vines, high on a jagged ledge, bleating for the lamb asleep under the chestnuts down in the dell.

Across the chasm of years floated the echo of the tinkling bell, that told where cows climbed in search of herbage; the singular rhythmic cadence of the trescone, danced in a neighboring vineyard; the deep, mellow, lingering tones of a monastery bell, rung by hermit hands in a gray tower on a mountain eyry, that looked westward upon the sparkling blue mirror of the Mediterranean.

Then she was twelve years old, dreaming glorious midsummer day-dreams, as she wandered with parents and brother on one of her father's sketching tours through unfrequented nooks; now--?

A petulant cry, emphasized by the baby hand tugging at the hem of her dress skirt, recalled Beryl's attention; and as she looked down at the waif, whom the chaplain had christened "Dovie" on the day of her mother's burial, the little one held up her arms.