The Incendiary Part 22

"Is it not amusing? But he will not allow that Arnold is at all open to suspicion, and of course I have not laid all my evidence before him."

"But surely the letters are connected with our case, and who else could it be?"

Since the finding of the glove and the testimony of the three gamins Emily was coming around to s.h.a.garach's view of Harry Arnold's possible guilt and the attack on Robert's lawyer had aroused her sympathies so as almost if not quite to convince her.

"Mr. McCausland is very keen--a wonderful man--of deceptive exterior, but like the rest of us, he sometimes makes mistakes," said s.h.a.garach. "His defect is that he uses the logical method only and ignores the psychological. It is necessary first to find out if the accused is capable of the crime. I first became sure of Robert Floyd's innocence when I saw him through the cell-bars of the jail. He is incapable of the crime."

"My son so admires your lover," added Mrs. s.h.a.garach.

"These other friends of mine," continued her son, taking down the thumbed volume which he had put back when the tapping startled them, "commit the opposite error. They are strictly physiological. They predict too much from a man's physical peculiarities."

The book he opened for Emily was a treatment on criminology, ill.u.s.trated with villainous heads in profile and full face. It was in Italian, so s.h.a.garach exchanged it for another.

"Behold the brands of the true criminal--'enormous zygomae,' 'ear lobes attached to the cheek,' 'spatulate fingernails----'"

"That takes in Mr. McCausland," said Emily, roguishly. She had got over her fright by this time and the allusion to spatulate fingernails recalled the whole train of events which had ended in the inspector's discomfiture.

"The refutation of such theorists," said s.h.a.garach, "is simple. We need only point to the fact that the greatest crimes are committed by men who are not professional criminals at all and who do not belong to the criminal type."

"Like this man," said the mother, going to a closet at one side and drawing forth a bundle of photographs. One of them she showed to Emily. It was Harry Arnold, bold and handsome, with the s.h.a.ggy cape coat thrown carelessly over his shoulders.

"Has he enormous zygomae, ear-lobes attached to his cheek?" she asked.

"I wish I could see his fingernails," laughed Emily.

"Arnold's face in repose does not show much capacity for evil. But it lights up badly. I have seen him crossed and in pa.s.sion."

"I think he looks as if he were veined of evil and good," said Emily frankly, studying the portrait long, as she loved to do. She had seen Harry once when he was at his best. Besides, her service in the photograph studio had made her something of a physiognomist, too, though not, of course, such a soul-reader as s.h.a.garach.

"His crimes are of the preventable order and therefore the more culpable. There are men born to crime, as the theorists argue; others driven to crime. For both of these cla.s.ses it is hardly more than a misplaced emphasis, a wrong direction of energies."

"Here is another volume--I am showing you all my workshop. Does it fatigue you?"

"Nothing which helps to clear up the mystery is dull to me," answered Emily.

"This treatise deals with 'Incidental Homicide.' Rather legal than clinical. The cases are all parallel to ours. The indictment, by the way, has just been given out. The weakest count charges Robert Floyd with arson and murder in the second degree. The punishment for that is only imprisonment for life."

"Only! Robert says he would rather be hanged."

"Let him have no fear of either," said Mrs. s.h.a.garach, cheerily.

"The newspapers tell us that the government offered much new evidence," said s.h.a.garach.

"I should like to know what it was," cried Emily, eagerly.

"So should I. Ordinarily, the grand-jury room is leaky enough, but Mr. McCausland, who is the government in this case, appears to have found a way to seal it hermetically."

"Perhaps he padlocked the jurors' lips," suggested Emily, whereat all three were merry.

From time to time during the conversation relapses of the old shudder had come back to Emily, though the tapping had utterly ceased since s.h.a.garach investigated the yard. He had left the curtain half-raised, so that any one approaching the window would be visible from within. It was just at this moment that she happened to change her seat, bringing her face around to the darkened window. Before the others could catch her, she had risen, pointed to the window and fallen to the floor with a terrified shriek.

s.h.a.garach started to raise her, but the terrible detonation of a pistol rung out, sacrilegiously invading their quietude. Then all was darkness, a noise of crashing gla.s.s telling that the lamp had been shattered and extinguished. Another report followed and another. Mrs. s.h.a.garach, trembling, heard her son quickly crossing to the window. The panes seemed to be broken, and there were sounds of a scuffle, mingled with a gnashing of teeth and growls more animal than human. Suddenly, with a ripping sound, the scuffle ceased, and rapid footsteps were heard pattering away. Then her son spoke to her in the loud, firm voice which he used in all practical affairs.

"Light the little lamp, mother. It is safe now. There are matches on the mantel."

"Are you hurt, Meyer?" she asked, anxiously, while lighting the lamp.

"A little," he answered.

"You were shot, my son?" she cried, embracing him.

"No. Let us revive Miss Barlow. Some water, Rachel," he said to the old servant who had come to the door.

When Emily came to she found Mrs. s.h.a.garach sponging her forehead, while her son was washing his hands in a basin of b.l.o.o.d.y water.

"Wrap the cotton around them quickly, Rachel," he was saying. "I must notify the police."

"Meyer, it is not safe."

Emily heard the mother protesting, then swooned again. When full consciousness returned the lawyer was gone and the three women were alone in the room. Rachel began picking up the fragments of the lamp. Only its chimney and globe had been broken, the metal being still intact. The windowpanes showed great ragged holes, which explained the laceration of s.h.a.garach's hands.

"Poor lady," cried the mother. "This is ill treatment we give you. But we are not to blame. It is the wicked enemies who are pursuing us all--your lover and my son." With terms of endearment she petted the weak girl back into a coherent understanding of her position. But every now and then the remembrance of something would cause her to shudder again visibly; whereat the elder lady would renew her caresses.

"I have notified the policeman. That was the best I could do," said s.h.a.garach, re-entering. He looked extremely grave. It was a narrow escape for one or more of the three. "This is all I have to identify him by. It was detached in the struggle."

He laid a common coat b.u.t.ton down on the table, with a piece of cloth adhering.

"That face! Who could ever forget it?" cried Emily.

"You saw him, then?" asked son and the mother in one breath.

"Shall I call it 'him'? Was it a man?" answered Emily. "Rather a monster, no more than half-human."

"It had the form of a man," said s.h.a.garach, "as I felt it through the gla.s.s."

Rachel was busy bandaging his cuts with plaster during this conversation, but they bled through, calling for the surgeon's thread.

"But it snarled like a tiger," said the mother.

"Oh the wild, blue eyes! They were staring at me through the cleft of the draperies. And the demon leer, and the forehead, retreating like a frog's----"

"It is the oaf I pa.s.sed on the pier," cried s.h.a.garach, interrupting Emily. "We have found Mr. Skull-and-Crossbones."

"Oaf? What is oaf?" asked the mother.

"An idiot, a monster."

She shuddered.

"A man of that description cannot long elude search," said the son in a more hopeful tone.

"They are often very cunning," replied the mother.

"Can it be Harry Arnold would employ such an agent?" asked Emily, still trembling.

"Twice," said s.h.a.garach, as if speaking to himself. "A cap and a b.u.t.ton. Men have been captured on slighter clews."

"You will give the b.u.t.ton to Mr. McCausland," said the mother.

"Yes; since it fits with the cap."

"Maybe he will help you to bring Harry Arnold to justice."

"And so to acquit Robert Floyd," said s.h.a.garach, smiling to cheer his guest.

The mention of her lover restored the wilted girl, who was brave enough when there was anything definite to be done. s.h.a.garach showed her the book on "Arson" which he had been holding when the first shot was fired. The bullet had pierced it on its career toward the lamp.

"The bullets will be evidence also," he said, "and I will measure the footprints before the rain comes down and washes them away."

"You will wish to go home, poor child," said Mrs. s.h.a.garach to Emily. "Not yet, but soon, when you are stronger. Rachel!"

The soothing words of the mother warmed Emily quite as much as the wine which Rachel brought. Meanwhile two policemen entered and began to examine the premises. s.h.a.garach visited the yard in their company and soon returned with a tape measure and a paper block, on which he had recorded the lengths of the footprints.

He was a.s.siduous in his regrets and inquiries toward Emily and insisted on accompanying her home in a carriage, which the mother, however, would not allow them to enter until she had exacted from her visitor a promise that she would come again on an appointed evening, and pressed upon her in true oriental fashion a certain rose-embroidered gossamer scarf for which Emily had expressed admiration.

At her own door the sweet girl heard s.h.a.garach order the hackman to drive to Dr. Lund's, and she guessed that his cuts would be somewhat worse for the delay in st.i.tching them. That night she saw gorgon faces leering in at her window, and her dreams were of new-moon scimiters and the rocking of the camel ride.

CHAPTER XXIX.

JACOB AND DELILAH.

"Put your wrists together!"

The voice was totally different from Dobbs' whine; a strong, deep register, like a ledge of the basal rock peeping out from a smiling meadow. For the first time Robert felt the veiled strength which resided in the detective's character. There was no option but to obey.

"Pull up the curtains, Johnnie."

The servant had been attracted by the crash of the lamp. A faint stream of daylight entered the chamber, and the noises of the city could be heard in the distance. McCausland's face seemed to have altered in every line.

"Get a hack! Jump into those shoes!" He tossed a curt order right and left, one for Johnnie, the other for Robert.

"To the county jail," was his direction to the hack driver. Robert wondered at this, but he sat back smiling and said nothing during all the ride.

"Here's your prisoner," said McCausland when they arrived. It was not yet 6 o'clock, but the sheriff was up and showed no great surprise. Robert wondered at this again and his amazement was not abated when they a.s.signed him to his original cell in murderers' row. However, the change was to his liking, for the surroundings were less presageful of permanency.

"You missed your vocation as a character actor," was his parting shot at McCausland.

It is easy to imagine the dismay in the prison that morning when the escape was discovered. Col. Mainwaring was a very different man from Warden Tapp, and for a time it looked as though McCausland might lose his badge. But when he showed an order from the sheriff empowering him to bring the body of Robert Floyd from the state prison back to the county jail, which had now been put in repair, Col. Mainwaring saw a light; and when McCausland pointed out that he had laid his finger precisely on certain weaknesses of the bastile, frequently suggested without avail to Tapp, the new warden thanked him pleasantly.

The story at first was given to the public that Inspector McCausland had captured the fugitive, Robert Floyd, and for a time not only did the detective's cap wear a bright new feather but all the credit of Robert's conduct during the riot was canceled by this outbreak, which was construed as a confession of guilt. But of course the truth leaked out, and the failure of his "nest-egg game," with its brilliant but desperate climax, was made the occasion of much chaffing to the contriver.

"Has Bill Dobbs been taken yet?" a brother-in-b.u.t.tons would ask him; and the two lovers had many a good laugh over the game which they had played and won. For the first time since the great shadow fell across them they were as happy and hopeful as lovers should be, and for several days little smiles of reminiscence would creep into the corners of Emily's lips while she was touching out the blemishes in some negative destined to pa.s.s from young Amaryllis to her Strephon or old Darby to his Joan.

Meanwhile s.h.a.garach, too, was interesting himself in the study of photographs.

"Have they all been returned?" he asked Aronson one morning.

"All but Meester Davidson's."

"And none of the neighbors saw Arnold coming out?"

"They all shake their heads and say no, they don't know that face."

"Very well. Jacob may put them in his desk. We shall hardly need them again. Go over to the second session and answer for me in the Morrow case. I am expecting Mr. McCausland."

"Speak of angels," said the inspector, entering cordially. "You know the rest of the saying."

"Good-morning. Be seated."

It did not escape even modest Saul Aronson what a contrast the antagonists made, sitting with the table between them. McCausland had, apparently, not glanced around with more than casual interest, yet, if blindfolded then and there and put to the test, he could have surprised those who did not know him with the minute and copious inventory of the office, not excluding its occupants, which this glance had furnished him. It was this, with his almost infallible memory, which made him so formidable an opponent at whist. s.h.a.garach was hardly his equal in mere perception, perhaps not his superior in a.n.a.lysis, when the subject was within McCausland's range. His advantage lay, if anywhere, as he had said himself, in his deeper insight into the human soul, in his psychological reach.

"Sorry I was out when you called the other day," said McCausland. "I've been looking up your matter."

"With what result?"

"These clippings may interest you."

s.h.a.garach glanced rapidly over the newspaper sc.r.a.ps.

"The Broadbane murder--I remember that well."

"It occurred about a week before your first attack. You remember Broadbane lured the young woman to a lonely bridge in his carriage and threw her into the river."

"The circ.u.mstances were similar to my adventure. The second item is strange to me."

"It's from a New York paper, dated July 28--the very day before your second attack. The circ.u.mstances are closely similar this time again. A jealous husband shot his wife through the window of her room."

"Our monster reads, then."

"He is a lunatic (puff)," said McCausland, who had lighted his invariable cigar.