The Incendiary Part 47

"I can only give you my word. If you choose to doubt it I am helpless."

"Will you please explain how your mother, who has left the court-room, I perceive, was able to inform Mr. McCausland that Robert Floyd was disinherited by his uncle and thus guide the finger of suspicion toward an innocent man from you, the incendiary?"

"I had no hand or finger in setting that fire. Circ.u.mstances tell against me. I have debased my own word, ruined my credibility, by a series of perjuries, all flowing from one initial folly. I can now understand my cousin's position--the shame of being misunderstood, unjustly suspected, though I am not fortified, as I feel that he is, by a consciousness of stainless honor throughout the affair. If he is guilty, then I am, and I ask--or, rather, I insist--that you shall place me under the same restriction of liberty as my cousin. Let me sleep under the same roof, endure the same privations, until he is acquitted and set free. For if to have had wrongdoing, ever so remotely, in one's heart is guilt, then I am the guiltier of us two."

"The sheriff, I think, will provide you a lodging," said s.h.a.garach, coolly, and after a conference between the chief justice, the district attorney and the lawyer it was announced that a warrant for Harry Arnold's arrest would be granted and that he would spend the night in a cell.

"There are still several points against the prisoner not met," said the district attorney, when s.h.a.garach moved for Robert's discharge.

"It is a new doctrine that a man should be held because there is reasonable doubt of his innocence," said the lawyer. But the district attorney was rigid and the chief justice thought it best, since there was only one more witness for the prosecution, to let the jury decide upon the facts, which were properly their province.

"Forgive me, Rosalie," said Harry, humbly, as he pa.s.sed her, going out, and her eyes, though they were full of mortification, disillusion, rebuke, told that she forgave him because she loved him.

"Arnold or Floyd?" was the alternative on the lips of the mult.i.tude surging homeward after that dramatic day, and Robert for the first time was actually cheered when he left the courthouse.

"Looks as though we might have two hangings instead of one," remarked Inspector McCausland to a reporter.

"Did you notice the expression on that woman who went out?" said Ecks to Wye.

"No."

"Guilt," said Ecks, shuffling his notes into his pocket. Then Emily saw Rosalie March's beautiful face soiled with tears and hastened down to comfort her.

"I am sorry," she said. "Don't fear for Harry. n.o.body in the world set that fire. It just caught----"

But why importune readers with Emily's theory, when they have doubtless already guessed it in detail?

CHAPTER LVI.

MARK TIME, MARCH!

Now that Robert's acquittal was almost a.s.sured, Emily's pity began to overflow toward Harry Arnold and Rosalie, whose position was exactly her own of the day before. For the vox populi had generally determined on Harry's guilt, though there were not wanting some who, like the father in the parable, were disposed to welcome the brilliant prodigal with lavish entertainment, freely extending the forgiveness he implored, while slighting the steadfastly loyal son who had never wandered from the path of virtue. This was poor recompense to Robert for his summer-long immurement, but he was put together of a substance impervious to the acid actions of criticism or neglect--the oaken fiber of the English Arnolds.

In all quarters curiosity was active about the defense. It was said by some that the prosecution had broken down, or might break down at any minute, and even if the last reluctant victim were haled up by Bigelow to the shambles, where s.h.a.garach stood, ax in hand, awaiting her, that it would be hammering on a driven nail to put on the long array of witnesses who had been summoned in behalf of the accused. Nevertheless the newspapers were at pains to worm out the names of these witnesses and to diet the public with prophetic outlines of their testimony.

The gist of it all was that s.h.a.garach meant to clinch his client's defense by building up a case against Harry.

Of course Emily found it hard to communicate her own confidence to Rosalie March, although Bertha was to take the stand the following morning and her theory would then (as she believed) receive a triumphant demonstration. What made Harry's face fall more bitter was that the date of his espousal to the beautiful actress had just been given to the world. From Rosalie's hard glance at s.h.a.garach, Emily knew there was as much blame in her heart for the lawyer as for her lover. And Rosalie was not the only girl who would have ransomed Harry Arnold, perjurer, self-seeker, gambler, as he owned himself to have been, with her life, if such a price should be asked.

"Are they sisters?" asked the thoughtless, misled by their golden hair, when the two beautiful girls went out together, leaving Mme. Violet behind. But a student of faces would never have fallen into such an error. One placid and aloof, even toward the audiences whose favor she courted, the other impulsive and approachable, throwing out tentacles of sympathy toward every human being with whom she came in contact, they supplemented rather than reflected each other; otherwise they would hardly have been drawn together so strongly, and made such a concord of friendliness.

Several surprises awaited Emily when she reached home. The first and pleasantest was an envelope, surcharged in the upper left-hand corner with the name of a certain magazine. This she opened with trembling fingers, for it was not quite three weeks since she mailed to the editor, unsigned, Robert's article on, "Proposals for a Consumers' Trust," that fruit of his prison reflections which Dr. Silsby had found so unpalatable. When an oblong slip of paper, perforated at the margin, slipped out, she knew it was a check; and the editor's letter was very urgent that "so striking a contribution should not be given to the world without its author's signature." Here was the beginning of a career for her sweetheart. She looked forward to the time when his qualities and talents should be recognized, and she herself perhaps be pointed out as the wife of Floyd, the famous writer, or thinker, or worker, or whatsoever other name they chose to give to the best, the truest and the most abused of men. The check, too, was of comforting value, and, since she was a shrewd little housekeeper withal, this discovery did not abate one particle of Emily's joy.

And yet, so little was she a lover of lucre for its own sake, the very first item on which her eye lighted in the evening paper, though it meant a money loss which the whole cash box of the Forum, converted into checks, could not make good, evoked almost a scream of delight from Emily and sent her flying into the kitchen where her mother was steeping the tea. The good lady wiped her honest hands on her ap.r.o.n and with a "Do tell!" fingered the Evening Beacon, which to-day is skimmed and tomorrow cast into the oven, as respectfully as if it had been a fancy valentine; then read, with Jennie, a slip of 14, on tiptoe leaning over her shoulder, that Judge Dunder had finally decided to uphold the late Prof. Arnold's will. Even s.h.a.garach had hardly expected this decision. For Judge Dunder was a confirmed devotee of legal technique and it had been supposed that nothing less than a verbatim copy of a destroyed will would be sustained by him.

But the main clauses of the will had certainly been reproduced, with an abundance of circ.u.mstantial detail. The only hiatus was a remote possibility. There may have been some smaller bequests that could not be traced. Apparently Judge Dunder had in this case resolved to wink a little at chicane and decide for justice in the broader sense.

"Harry Arnold may have to do something to justify his existence now," said Mrs. Barlow after supper to Emily. She had a prejudice against wild young men.

"Oh, Rosalie has enough for two," answered Emily, who was standing before the mirror putting her hat on for a visit to Walter Riley.

The first sight that met her eye when she reached the sidewalk was a squad of salvation army soldiers, with Serena Lamb at their head, parading through the street, chanting their invitation to sinners. Serena held her tambourine high in air and her shrill voice dominated the chorus like that of a precentor in the kirk. But the exercise seemed to lack its usual spirit this evening. Was it because n.o.body took any particular notice of the group? Curiosity about them was wearying itself threadbare, and even the toddling urchins no longer gathered at the drumbeat as they used to. Emily had often admired the devotion of these sisters, but, looking at this unnoticed and discouraged band, she wondered if the antagonism of the mult.i.tude were not in truth the very sustenance of their zeal. Might not all their heroic energy exhaust itself, like the nerve of a boxer, compelled to waste his blows in the air, if the atmosphere of opposition should change to one of apathy?

CHAPTER LVII.

A STERN CHASE.

"At any cost!" The last words of his master tingled in Saul Aronson's ears when he left the court-room with the summons in his hand. Ever since the disclosures of Serena Lamb he had been more than usually abashed in his demeanor. For in some measure he felt that it was he who had brought this threatened catastrophe upon their cause. Here was the opportunity to retrieve his misstep. He would prove his fidelity and serve the writ "at any cost."

Mrs. Arnold had secured a few minutes' start, but Aronson did not doubt his ability to overtake her. She would probably call a cab, since she was an all-day attendant at the sittings and it was unlikely her family carriage would be waiting for her. Impatiently he rang the elevator up, and then, deciding just as it arrived that it was quicker to walk down, balked the boy by tacking off toward the staircase and descending it two steps at a time. When he reached the exit, the square was deserted. But just around the corner, like the whisk of a vanishing tail, he caught a glimpse of a rapidly driven cab. After this he sped, down the crowded main thoroughfare, dodging the pedestrians as well as he could, with his eyes on the distant vehicle, and yawing wildly at last into the arms of a man who stood waiting on the curbstone.

"Where in the----" but the man was a herdic driver and his language may as well be left to the imagination. Aronson saw the badge on his hat; that was enough.

"Catch that carriage," he said, "and I'll give you $2."

"Jump in," cried the driver. The door was locked in a jiffy and presently they were b.u.mping over the cobblestones.

"Stop there!" shouted the burly policeman who used to escort Emily so gallantly over the street crossing.

"It's a runaway!" cried the herdic driver, giving himself the lie by a savage snap of his whip. The officer was in no trim for a spurt, so he fell behind puffing. Still they b.u.mped on, till Aronson's anxiety mastered him and he rapped at the window for attention. The driver stupidly reined up.

"Go on!" cried the pa.s.senger, and the whip-lash circled once more with a crack. They were out on the long bridge to Oxford now, and the fugitive could not be far ahead.

"h.e.l.lo!" shouted the driver. The jehu in front turned his head.

"Haul up!" he hailed.

The driver in front obeyed and the two herdics were soon abreast, Aronson getting a dusty toss in his impatience to get out. As he picked himself up, a great fat man put his head out of the other herdic window and began to ask the cause of the detention.

"Is Mrs. Arnold in there?" inquired Aronson, putting his head into the herdic, just by the fat pa.s.senger's.

"Mrs. Arnold? What Mrs. Arnold? Take your head out, you impudent,--drive away, you----" cried the fat pa.s.senger, settling back on the cushions which he almost filled with the breadth of his back. Aronson was left standing alone on the road, puzzling his wits what to do.

"You lost the right carriage," he said.

"I followed the one you pointed out," answered the driver, surlily.

"Well, take me back."

"Where's my $2?" asked No. 99, and Aronson had to pay him this sum, as well as an advance fare for the ride back, before he would turn his horse's head. Going in town, the animal made up for time gained by a heartbreaking leisureliness of pace. No one could blame the poor hack horse. There had been some attempt to make him look respectable by docking his tail, but it was no more successful than a silk hat on a prize-fighter, designed to foster the same illusion.

It was just 5:40 when Aronson reached the Northern depot and the train for Hillsborough had left at 5:38. He had the misery of knowing that Mrs. Arnold was probably well on her way to her summer residence by this time, and that there was no train earlier than 7 o'clock. In the interim he bought a ticket, supped, reflected, counted his money and studied the subpoena.

A village bell was tolling 8 when Aronson stepped from the pa.s.senger car out on the platform of the Hillsborough station. They had left the sunset behind them in their eastward ride and the country village was dark.

"I want a carriage to Mrs. Arnold's house," he said to the station-master.

"Hacks are all in now," answered the official behind the grating, turning to his books. But he underrated the persistency of his customer.

"I'll give you $1.50 for a team," said Aronson. The suggestion worked magically and in less than an hour he was let down before the veranda of the Arnold mansion. A ruby porch-light flooded him with a kind of delighted confusion. How mild and solemn the country is at night! How suggestive of gra.s.sy comforts the humming of the crickets! All the shepherd that lay deep down in Aronson's nature, as in that of every one of us, even the plainest, had time to show itself in the interval between his ring and the servant's answer.

"Mrs. Arnold is in Woodlawn," answered the housemaid. "Can you leave your business?"

"No, I want to see her personally."

Woodlawn! She had escaped him then. The teamster was waiting and the servant diminishing the aperture of the door to a suspicious crack, while he collected his thoughts.

"How long has she been in Woodlawn?" he asked.

"She just moved in yesterday morning," replied the servant, closing the door with a slam.

"Take me back in time for the next train," said Aronson to the driver.

"Too late for the next train," came the drawling answer. "Next train is at 9:15 and it's most 9 now."

"When is the last train?" asked Aronson, figuring on a midnight visit to Woodlawn.

"That's the last train to-night."

Here was a wild-goose chase indeed, but Aronson had a keen suspicion that it was the goose who was the chaser.

"What is the first train in the morning?"

"At 6:15 a. m.," answered the rustic, who usually knows his local time-table better than his prayers.

"Can I lodge here for the night?"

"Dunno. Sam Cook might put you up. He used to keep an inn. Maybe he can find a spare bed for you under the roof somewheres."

"Drive me to Sam Cook's," said Aronson. All the nocturnal interest of the countryside had vanished from him now, and it was with no kindly feeling toward Hillsborough that he stretched his limbs in the old boniface's spare bed, laying the subpoena under his pillow and muttering a pet.i.tion to Jehovah that he might not oversleep himself and lose the 6:15 a. m. But the real danger proved to be that he would get no sleep at all. For at midnight he was still tossing.

A cow-bell, furiously jingled, awoke him at sunrise, and he was in the city at 7:15, on schedule time.

"To Woodlawn," a sign on one of the tracks read. But the hands of the mock clock pointed to 7:45 and there was another half-hour of waiting. All the world was out of bed, for the steeple bell had just tolled 8 when he arrived in Woodlawn and inquired his way to the Arnolds'.

"Just moved back!" thought Aronson. "I should say so."

Mats were hanging out of windows, servants were mopping panes, a hostler was hosing a muddy carriage in the stable; everything showed that a general scrubbing process had begun. To his surprise and pleasure, he recognized the housemaid who answered his ring as Bertha Lund. She was dressed in her smartest pink, for this was the day of her testimony.

"I want to see Mrs. Arnold," said Aronson, blurting out his message like a schoolboy.

"Mrs. Arnold? Well, you've come too late," answered Bertha.

"Isn't she here?"

"Here! She's on her way to Europe by this time."

"To Europe!"

Saul Aronson's jaw dropped and the subpoena began to burn a hole in his pocket. Was this a subterfuge? He would be on the alert.

"When did she start?"

"Why, this morning. You must have pa.s.sed her coming out."

Pa.s.sed her coming out! It was like chasing his own shadow, this constant missing of the game he hunted.

"But wha--wha--what made her go to Europe?" stammered Aronson. He remembered hearing s.h.a.garach say one day that flight was confession. Was Mrs. Arnold involved in her son's guilt? Then all the more reason for waylaying her before she gave them the slip.

"Can't a lady go abroad if she chooses? Mrs. Arnold goes abroad every summer."

"But Harry----"

"Yes, we're cleaning things up for Harry. They'll live here after they're married, you know, Harry and Miss March."

"But he was arrested!"

"Arrested!"

Bertha had left the court early on the previous day and did not read the papers.

"Didn't his mother know Harry was arrested?"

"Arrested! Harry? What for?"

"For setting his uncle's house on fire," answered Aronson, who as a loyal partisan was one shade more thorough in his conviction of Harry's guilt than s.h.a.garach himself.

"Setting his uncle's house on fire! Nonsense!"

"What boat did she take?" asked Aronson, breaking in upon Bertha's astonishment with a gesture of impatience.

"The Venetia, of the Red Star line."