The Incendiary Part 6

"How many?"

"Three or four, I think."

"Since the will was made, then?"

"And dealing with Ellen. About the will----"

"Let us finish with the peddler."

"He had blue eyes and drove a cart painted green. n.o.body had ever seen him in the neighborhood before, till he came selling vegetables and potted plants. His last visit was made on Friday."

"Not Sat.u.r.day, the day of the fire?"

"Miss Wesner, who is very observing, has not seen him since Friday."

"Not as a peddler," said s.h.a.garach, sotto voce. "Now as to the will. You wish to say that Floyd has told you of his uncle's desire to make him sole heir and his own aversion to the responsibilities of so large a property."

"Does he practice clairvoyance?" asked Emily of herself.

"Robert is no lover of money," she said. "To allege avarice against him as a motive is monstrous."

"Avarice, Miss Barlow? To love money is not avarice. Men grow to their opportunities. Without opportunities they wither and without money today there is no opportunity."

"The artist--does his genius gain or lose when it is gilded?" replied Emily, who felt a match even for s.h.a.garach in the defense of her lover.

"The artist--ah, he is not of the world! Gold might well be to him an inc.u.mbrance. But to the worker among men it is the key to a thousand coffers."

There was deep feeling in these words of the criminal lawyer. Emily wondered if there might not have been a past of poverty, perhaps of spiritual aspiration and disappointment in his life, all subdued to the present indomitable aim at fortune and reputation.

"The refusal was a folly, a stripling's fatal blunder--yet a blunder of which not three men in our city are capable. Let us leave the will. It may reappear in its proper sequence. No suspicious character was seen loitering about or leaving the house on Sat.u.r.day?"

"My inquiries have been limited to Miss Wesner."

"Aronson!"

The young man reappeared as before.

"Make thorough inquiry this evening in the neighborhood of the Arnold house, rear and front, for a stranger seen loitering about the premises or issuing from them on Sat.u.r.day afternoon."

"Yes, Miss Barlow, I have a theory," resumed s.h.a.garach, turning to Emily again. He folded his arms and looked at her steadfastly, yet as though his gaze were fixed on something beyond.

"I see your lover's photograph in your eyes--mild blue eyes, but touchstones of integrity, hard to deceive. He impresses me well. His story, moreover, bears a somewhat uncommon voucher. It is true because of its improbability. How improbable that any man would refuse a gift of $10,000,000! How improbable that any man, not a sleep-walker, would wander through the streets of a city without any record of his sensuous impressions!"

"But----"

"The improbability of the story demonstrates its truth. Men lie, women lie, children lie. Have you watched a band of girls playing at the imitation of school? How cunningly the teacher feigns anger, the pupils naughtiness and sad repentance. Have you observed the plausibility in the inventions of toddling babes to escape imminent chastis.e.m.e.nt? Falsehood is a normal faculty and equipped with its protective armor, plausibility. Your friend's story is too preposterous to be untrue."

Emily was bewildered by these rapid paradoxes.

"I congratulate you upon your friendship with so unusual a specimen of our kind, the man who cannot or will not lie. But I should not like to present his defense on such grounds to twelve of his fellow-creatures, normal in that respect. Fortunately we are not driven to that extreme refuge.

"The material for a theory is meager; the chain shows many gaps. But I find no evidence that Floyd attempted to get rid of the servant, Bertha. A child, meditating this crime, would not have neglected so obvious a precaution. Her continued absence was only an opportune accident. Her re-entrance would have resulted in his discovery. The point is pivotal.

"I find that a favorite house dog was left in the room to be sacrificed--a needless cruelty if the incendiary were his master, a necessary precaution if he were a stranger whose actions the animal would have understood and whom he would have followed to the street."

"But would Sire have allowed a stranger even to enter the study?"

"True; but between strangers and friends there is a middle category consisting of persons whom we may call acquaintances. Into these three degrees we are divided by dogkind. It was not a stranger or he would have been attacked. He had no friends left but Bertha, Ellen and Floyd. The dog was drowsing on the mat. The man who entered was an acquaintance.

"Who was this man? We have a few items of his description. Some one known to the dog, familiar with the premises and interested in the destruction of the doc.u.ment of which that house, that room and that safe were the triple-barred shrine. An expert criminal could have destroyed the safe without detection, but the incendiary was an amateur, and such an act would require time. There was no time, not an instant. The executor was to arrive that afternoon. McCausland started right. The Harmon building was destroyed and seven lives sacrificed in order that Benjamin Arnold's will might be irrevocably canceled. Who benefited by its destruction?

"The professor had desired to make Robert Floyd his sole heir, in other words, to disinherit Harry Arnold!"

s.h.a.garach's monologue had reached its climax. The name of the other cousin came out like the ring of a hammer. He waited, as if yielding Emily an opportunity to object, but as she sat pa.s.sive and expectant, he went on, his arms still folded, and his glowing eyes evincing deep absorption in the problem he was elucidating.

"Harry Arnold was in disfavor, then. The drafting of the will must have been communicated to him, but probably not its items. The mere fact, however, was ominous. It might mean the loss of a fortune. One of the servants was dressing 'uncommonly rich' of late. The wherewithal came to her as payment for conveying to Harry Arnold all she could pick up about the will. It may not have been pleasant news.

"It was from Mrs. Arnold McCausland first learned of the will. It was Harry Arnold who hastened to advertise a reward of $5,000--McCausland's fee if----"

"As to the fee," said Emily.

"I understand; the legacy of $20,000 amply protects me."

Emily was uncertain whether or not s.h.a.garach meant to demand the whole $20,000 for his services.

"I find that the flies were about the honey pot. Mrs. Arnold's carriage drove up about 3 o'clock. The executor was to call that afternoon. Revelation could not be long delayed. The plot was desperately formed, favored by circ.u.mstance and executed by Harry Arnold and his accomplices."

"But Harry Arnold has been ill, Mr. s.h.a.garach."

"The name of his physician?"

"I believe, Dr. Whipple, the pathologist. You suspect Harry, then, of the crime?"

"I have not studied him yet. This is only an alternative theory. You see how easily it could have been constructed in your friend's behalf.

"Mungovan, the discharged coachman, has not yet been found. The strange peddler may prove a confederate. You will send Bertha to me. She is the central witness. Is Floyd in jail?"

"Yes," said Emily, sadly; "but a permit----"

"I shall not need one. I am his counsel."

Emily descended the creaking stairway and rode home with a certain new elation, such as we sometimes feel after contact with some electric character, some grand reservoir of human vitality. Meyer s.h.a.garach meanwhile began pacing up and down, occasionally speaking to himself sotto voce.

A criminal lawyer, but with the head of an imperial chancellor.

What was known of this rare man's history? About thirty years before he was born in a small town on the upper Nile, a descendant of those mighty Jewish families whose expulsion impoverished Spain, while spreading her tongue throughout the orient, even beyond the Turcoman deserts to the unvisited cities of Khiva and Merv. Languages were his birthright, as naturally and almost as numerously as the digits on his hands. In his youth his father had wandered to America--refuge of all wild, strange spirits of the earth--and died, leaving a widow and a son. The boy had been visionary, unpractical--a white blackbird among his tribe. For years he had struggled to support his mother, first as an attorney's drudge, then as a scribbler. There was no market for his wares. Then by a sudden wrench, showing the vise-like strength of his will, he had burst the bubble of his early hopes and chosen for his profession that of all professions which requires the most thorough subjection of the sentiments. It was six years since he had first rented the obscure quarters he now occupied, the same where, as a lad, he had sighed away many hours of distasteful toil.

For the first two years s.h.a.garach's face showed the desperation of his fortunes. His own people shunned him as a seceder from the synagogue. To the public he was still unknown. But one day a trivial case had matched him against a certain eminent pleader, a Goliath in stature and in skill. The end of the day's tourney witnessed his bulk prostrated before the undersized scion of the house of David. From that hour the dimensions of his fame had grown apace. Critics noticed an occasional simplicity in everyday matters, just as a gifted foreigner who has become eloquent in our tongue may have to ask some commonplace native for a word now and then. Rivals questioned his technical learning, who had little else to boast. Yet s.h.a.garach's knowledge, practical or legal, was always found adequate to his cause. Whether he was pedantically profound in the law or not might be an open question. But all who knew him at all knew him for a t.i.tan.

The man appeared to be lonely by nature. Excepting the young a.s.sistant, Aronson, he a.s.sociated no colleague with him, carrying all the details of his growing volume of business in his own capacious mind. Other men made memoranda. s.h.a.garach remembered. What he might be in himself none knew; yet "all things to all men" was a motto he spurned. s.h.a.garach was s.h.a.garach to judge or scullion, everywhere masterful, unruffled, mysterious. Were it not for the luminous eyes he might be taken for an abstract thinker. These orbs supplied the magnetism to rivet crowds and suggested a seer of deep soul-secrets (unknown even to their possessor), dormant, perhaps subdued, but not annihilated, under the exterior equipment of the criminal lawyer.

s.h.a.garach often colloqued with himself as he was doing now. In his trials, though he neither badgered witnesses nor wrangled with opponents, he was noted for sotto-voce comments, sometimes ironical, that seemed scarcely conscious. These mannerisms might be relics of a solitary pre-existence, in which the habit of thinking aloud had been formed.

"Was it Arnold or Mungovan who touched the match?" He continued his pacing in silence. "Both knew the premises, Mungovan the better of the two."

The electric street lamp shone into his room and the footfalls of the last tenant, receding on the stairs, had long since died to silence.

"I will study Arnold," he said, finally, b.u.t.toning his coat, as if the problem were as good as solved.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ROYSTERERS.

"Get the mail, Indigo."

The letters made a goodly heap on the salver, but Harry Arnold sifted them over with an air of dissatisfaction. One cream-colored envelope, superscribed in a dainty hand, he laid apart. The rest he tore open and tossed into Indigo's lap, as if they were duns, invitations and other such formal matters.

"Drop a line apiece to these bores," he said to his valet, with a yawn. Like the whole tribe of the unoccupied, he was too busy to answer letters.

"Where's Aladdin?"

"Grazing in the paddock."

"Did you get the roses for Miss March?"

"Two dozen Marechal Neils."

"I want some paper for a note to go with them. Mother's prompt," he added, opening the letter he had reserved, while Indigo went on his errand. It was headed "Hillsborough," and ran as follows: "Dear Harry: It is a pleasure to be in our old summer home again, especially after the trying day I spent in that courtroom. The orchards are no longer in bloom, and the pear tree in the angle (your favorite), which was just a great pyramid of snowy blossoms when we arrived last year, is now budding with fruit. These things remind me how late the season has begun this year. Do not prolong it too far, Harry, dear. I am sure, after your illness, the mere sight of the open fields would do you good. Woodlawn is suburban, but it is not real country. Besides, we are only twenty miles out and you could ride in town in an hour whenever you liked.

"Be a.s.sured you shall have the money for your club expenses as soon as I can collect it. But property has its embarra.s.sments, you know; and we may be rich in bonds and indentures, yet lack ready pennies at times, strange as it may seem to your inexperience. Do not worry, dear. In your present delicate state of health it may injure you more than I care to think. The very next time I come to town you shall have what you desire. But I make my own terms. You must be a good boy and come to Hillsborough for it. Forgive my writing so soon. I have been thinking of you, and it surely cannot displease you to hear once more how dearly you are remembered, wherever she goes, by your loving mother, "ALICE BREWSTER ARNOLD."

"Once more! No, nor a thousand times more!" cried Harry. "But I wish she'd come down sooner with the cash," he added. "What's this? Postscript?"

"Your friends, the Marches, have taken their cottage in Lenox. Possibly this may hasten your coming more than my entreaties."

"Jealous of Rosalie, already," laughed Harry. "Poor mother! What, another?"

"P. S. (Private)--It would be wise, Harry, if you should call upon your cousin. A visit from you would look well at this time."

"A call on Rob? Gad, I never thought of that. Give me the stationery, Indigo."

For five minutes Harry Arnold was alone, writing his prettiest note of compliment to accompany the gift of flowers to Miss Rosalie March. He had just moistened the mucilage when there came a ring at the bell.

"See if that's the fellows, Indigo. Look through the shutters."

"It's Kennedy," said Indigo, twisting his neck and eyes so as to get a slanting view of the callers.

"Who else?"

"Idler and Sunburst."

"Let them up."

"Well, Harry," cried the first of the three bloods, extending a hand, "what's the tempo of your song this morning?"

"Allegro, vivace, vivacissimo, Idler. Convalescing; doctor says I may go out; mother agreeable; medicine chest thrown to the dogs. Have a pill; only a few more left."

"h.e.l.lo!" cried the fragile youth who had entered last. "Miss Rosalie March!" He picked up the envelope which Harry had laid down. "Sits the wind in that quarter still, Horatio?"

"The actress, Harry?" cried a second of the trio.

"What actress, you b.o.o.by? Miss March isn't an actress."

"Nevertheless, she occasionally acts," retorted Sunburst. His yellow beard ent.i.tled him to this alias.

"Just the opposite, then, of her brother, Tristram," said the tall, sallow youth addressed as Idler. "He is a sculptor, but he never sculps. Did you see his alto-relievo of a Druid's head in the Art club? Capital study. Why in the deuce doesn't he work?"

"If he did he might get his goods on the market," said Kennedy.

"Out on you for a Philistine, a dunderhead!" cried Harry. "Do you confound genius with salability? Idler could correct you on that point. You remember his satire on 'The Religious Significance of Umbrellas in China?' Was anything ever more daringly conceived, more wittily executed, more--but I spare the shades of Addison and Lamb. And how much did it fetch him? A paltry $15."

Idler was the only one of these well-born good-for-naughts who ever turned his gifts to use. Sketches over the sobriquet by which he was known to his friends occasionally appeared in the lighter magazines.

"But my 'New Broom' made a clean sweep, Harry," he protested.

"Murder," groaned Harry. "He had that in for us. A prepared joke is detestable. It's like bottled spring water."

"Hang spring water!" said Idler. "Hang water anyway!"

"Indigo," cried Harry, jumping at the hint, "fetch us some very weak whey from the spa. Let's have a real old high jinks of a slambang bust to celebrate my convalescence. h.e.l.lo! What's that?"

The wild wail of a bagpipe smote the air and the four boon companions rushed to the window.

"Have him in!"

"Yoho!"

"Here, Sawnie!"

"He's coming."