One of My Sons Part 16

"He was rich; yet had few if any calumniators."

I handed him the paper. There were some startling lines below those I had read out so glibly.

"They do not stop at suicide," I remarked; "murder is suggested. The drug was not administered by himself."

"Oh!" protested Sam, running his eye over the lines that were destined to startle all New York that morning. "This won't do! None of those boys are bad enough for that, not even Leighton."

"You dislike Leighton," I remarked.

He did not reply; he had just come upon my name in the article he was reading.

"Look here!" he cried, "you're a close one. How came you to be mixed up with the affair? I see your name here."

"Read!"

He complied with an eagerness which I suppose but faintly mirrored that of half the _Tribune's_ readers that morning. What he read, I leave to your imagination, merely premising that no new facts had come to light since my departure from the house and the printing of the paper. When he had finished, he bestowed upon me a long and scrutinising look. "This knocks me out," said he, with more force than elegance. "I would never have believed it, never, of any of these men." Then with a sudden change quite characteristic, he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "It was a rum chance for you, Arthur. How did you like it?"

I refused to discuss this side of the question. I was afraid of disclosing what had become the inner-most secret of my heart.

He did not notice my reticence--this, too, was like him--but remarked with visible reluctance:

"The weight of evidence seems to be against Alph. Poor Alph! So this is the result of those long, unbroken hours of silent dreaming! I shall never trust a lazy man again. When they do bestir themselves----"

"He has not been arrested yet," I interjected dryly. "Till the police show absolute belief in his guilt, I for one shall hold my tongue."

"Poor Alph!" was all the reply I received.

XIII

INDICATIONS

These concluding words of Sam Underhill show the trend of public opinion at this time. But I was not swayed by the general prejudice, nor, to all appearance, were the police. Though enough poison was found in Mr. Gillespie's remains to have caused the death of any ordinary man in fifteen minutes, no arrests were made, nor was Mr.

Gillespie's favourite son subjected to any closer surveillance than the other members of this once highly respected family.

Meanwhile, the papers were filled with gossip about the case, which was now openly regarded as one of murder. In one column I read a semi-humorous, semi-serious account of how George Gillespie actually once won a bet in face of all odds and to the confounding of those who trusted in his invariable ill-luck; and in another how Leighton had worn out his father's patience by a most persistent a.s.sociation with the most degraded cla.s.ses, an a.s.sociation which led him into all sorts of extravagances. As a sample of these, and to show how entirely his follies differed from those of his elder brother, he has been known to order breakfast at a restaurant and disappear in the wake of a Salvation Army procession before the meal could be served. They never knew at home when to expect him in, or at what moment he might leave the family circle. He was so restless, he rarely sat an evening out in any one place. Without any apparent reason, he would often leave in the midst of concert, sermon, or lecture, and has been known more than once to dash away from a theatrical performance as if his life depended upon his reaching the open air. And he never expected to be criticised or questioned. If he were, he found some apology to suit the occasion; but the apology was forced, and the person who called it forth rarely repeated the offence.

Only a small paragraph was devoted to Alfred. In it his temporary engagement to Miss Saxton of Baltimore was mentioned, and a somewhat cruel account given of the way he jilted this young lady on his return to the city. As this was coincident with the arrival of Hope at her uncle's house, I needed no further explanation of his fickleness.

All this gossip about people in whom I had come to take so deep an interest both worried and unsettled me; and I found myself looking forward with mingled dread and expectation to the public inquiry, which I had every reason to hope would separate some of these threads, in the network of which my own heart had become so unfortunately entangled.

It had been called for Thursday, and when that day came I was one of the first to appear upon the scene. Not a word of what pa.s.sed escaped me; not a look nor a sign. Miss Meredith, who entered on the arm of Leighton, wore a veil thick enough to conceal her features. But I did not need to pierce that veil to imagine the expression of anxiety and distress she thus concealed from the crowd. George, who had resumed his usual manner, sat, conspicuous in height and good looks, among a group of witnesses, some of whom I knew and some not. Dr. Bennett sat at my side, and had so little to say that I did not attempt to disturb him, having respect for the grief with which he regarded the untimely end of his life-long friend and patient.

The first witness was myself.

As my testimony contained nothing which has not been already very fully related in these pages, I will pa.s.s over this portion of the scene, with the single remark that in the course of my whole examination, which was a lengthy and exhaustive one, I allowed no expression to escape me likely to prejudice the minds of those about me against any one of Mr. Gillespie's sons. For it was apparent, before I had been upon the stand ten minutes, that an effort was being made to fix the crime on Alfred; and what surety could I have that this result would not plunge a barbed arrow into the breast of her about whom my fancy had drawn its magic circle? As I sat down, I glanced her way, and it seemed to me there was meaning in the slight acknowledgment she made me with her ungloved hand. But what meaning?

The inquiry thus being opened, and curiosity roused as to the motive which led Mr. Gillespie to summon a stranger to his side at a moment so vital and under circ.u.mstances seemingly calling for the ministrations of those nearest and dearest to him, various experts and physicians were called to prove that his death had not been caused by disease, but by the action of prussic acid on a sufficiently healthy system. With the establishment of this fact the morning's inquiry closed.

As Miss Meredith was likely to be the first witness called at the afternoon session, I felt it my duty as her lawyer to approach her at this time with the following question, quite customary under the circ.u.mstances:

"Miss Meredith," said I, "you will probably soon be subjected to a searching inquiry by the coroner. May I ask if there is any special point or topic concerning which you would prefer to keep silence? If so, I can insist upon your privilege."

The look of mingled surprise and indignation with which she regarded me was a sufficient answer in itself. Yet she chose to say, and say coldly, after a moment of reflection:

"I have nothing to conceal. He can ask no question I shall not be perfectly willing to answer."

Abashed by the construction she had put upon my words, as well as greatly hurt by her manner, I bowed and drew off. Evidently she had felt her candour impugned and her innocence questioned, and, in her ignorance of legal proceedings, thought she had only to speak the truth to sustain herself in my eyes and in those of the crowd a.s.sembled to hear her.

This sort of self-confidence is common in witnesses, especially in such as are more conscious of their integrity than of the pitfalls underlying the simplest inquiry; and however much I might deplore her short-sightedness and wish that she had better understood both myself and her own position, it was plain that, in the light of what had just pa.s.sed between us, all interference on my part would be regarded by her as an insult, and that I would be expected to keep silence under all circ.u.mstances, let the consequences be what they would.

It was an outlook far from agreeable either for the lawyer or lover, and the recess which now ensued was pa.s.sed by me in a state of dread of which she in her inexperience had little idea.

Upon the reseating of the jury, her name, just as I had antic.i.p.ated, was the first one called.

The emotions with which I saw her rise and throw aside her veil under the concentrated gaze of the unsympathetic crowd convened to hear her testimony, first revealed to me the absoluteness of her hold upon me; and when I heard the buzz of admiration which followed the disclosure of her features, I was conscious of colouring so deeply that I feared my secret would become the common property of the crowd. But the spell created by her beauty still held, and all regards remained fixed upon her countenance, now eloquent with feelings which for the moment were shared by all who looked upon her.

Her voice when she spoke deepened the effect of her presence. It was of that fine and resonant quality which awakens an echo in all sensitive hearts and carries conviction with it even to the most callous and prejudiced. It lost some of its power perhaps as the ear became accustomed to it; but to the very end of her testimony, I noted here and there persons who looked up every time she spoke, as if some inner chord responded to her tones--tones which, more than her face, conveyed the impression of a nature exceedingly deep and exquisitely sensitive.

She, meantime, failed to realise the effect which her appearance had produced. She had been questioned, and was striving earnestly and conscientiously to do justice to her oath, and relate as circ.u.mstantially as possible what she knew of her uncle's sudden death.

This is what I heard her say:

"I was my uncle's typewriter. I a.s.sisted him often with his correspondence and was accustomed to go in and out of his study as if it were my own room. On this night, I had written several letters for him, and being tired had gone upstairs for a little rest. But I was too anxious to be of a.s.sistance to him--his mail that evening was unusually large--to retire without one more effort to relieve him; so I went down again a little after ten. I had heard steps in the hall a few minutes before, and little Claire's voice somewhere about the house, but I did not encounter anyone in going down, perhaps because I went by the way of the rear stairs, as I often do when I am in a hurry. Little, little did I imagine what was before me. When I reached my uncle's door,--but you know what a terrible sight met me. There lay my kind--my good----"

We all waited, our hearts in our mouths, but in a moment more she choked down her emotion and was ready to go on.

"He was dead. I knew it at first glance, yet I raised no cry. I could not. I seemed in an instant to have become marble. I saw him lying at my feet and did not weep a tear. I did not even touch him. I merely staggered to the table at the side of which he had fallen, and mechanically, but with a stoppage of my heart's action which made the instant one of untold horror to me, lifted the carriage of the typewriter which he had evidently been using when struck with death, and looked to see what his last words had been. I had reason for believing that they would convey some warning to me or at least an explanation of his sudden death. And they did, or so I interpreted the isolated phrase I came upon at the end of the unfinished letter I found there. G.o.d knows I may have been mistaken as to what those five words meant, but I was so impressed with the belief that they were added there for my personal enlightenment that I reeled under the responsibility thus forced upon me, and, hardly conscious of what I was doing, tore off, with almost criminal haste, the portion containing these words, and fled with them out of the sight and reach of everyone in the house. It was a mad thing to do, and I speedily regretted the insane impulse which had actuated me, for I was very soon discovered in the remote spot to which I had fled, and the piece of paper was found, and--and----"

How could she be expected to go on?

"Have we that piece of paper here?" asked the coroner.

It was produced, identified, and pa.s.sed down to the jury.

It was my opinion at the time, and is still, that she told her story thus fully in order to elude the questions which any apparent reticence on her part would a.s.suredly have evoked. But, having reached this point, it seemed impossible for her to go farther. She drooped, not under the eyes of the crowd, but under the fixed gaze of her three cousins. Had she hoped for some signs of sympathy from them which she failed to receive, or, at least a partial recognition, on their part, of the suffering she was undergoing in the cause of truth and justice? If so, no such recognition came. George's fine face showed anger and anger only; Leighton's, a cold impa.s.sibility which might have pa.s.sed for the stolidity of an utterly unfeeling man if his hands had not betrayed his inner restlessness and torment; while Alfred's flashing eye and set lips made plain the fact that his emotions clung to his own position rather than to hers--as was natural, perhaps, with that slip of paper going the rounds of the jury, and calling up from that respectable body startled, uneasy, or menacing looks, according to the nature of the man examining it.

You remember that slip; a business communication broken into by these totally irrelevant words, "one of my sons He". Is it any wonder that these twelve commonplace men keenly felt their position in face of what looked like a direct accusation from the father's hand?

Yet as these five words, simple in themselves and gaining meaning only from the effort which this young girl had made to suppress them, were capable of being construed in a hundred different ways, the faces which at first blush mirrored but one thought gradually a.s.sumed a non-committal aspect, which would have been more encouraging to the men thus compromised, if the facts still to be brought out in explanation of Miss Meredith's conduct towards them had not been of so damaging a character.

Hope, who surmised, if she did not know, the contents of the letter she now heard rustling in the coroner's hand, awaited his next question with evident perturbation. Alfred, who may have hoped that this letter would not appear so early in the examination, forgot himself for a moment and cast a look at his brothers, which they took pains to ignore, perhaps because of the effort it cost them to preserve their own countenances in face of the impending ordeal.

I was witness both to this appeal and its rebuff, but to all appearance Dr. Frisbie saw neither. He was deciding with what form of words to introduce his new subject.