The Secret of Lonesome Cove Part 45

"No third person had any part whatsoever in the drama which Jax has recounted to us," pursued Kent. "In the morning the body was discovered.

Sheriff Schlager was sent for. He found in the pocket something that betrayed the connection of the body with Hedgerow House."

"A bit of writing-paper, with the heading still legible," said the sheriff.

"With this he accosted Gansett Jim, who after a night-long search had come out on the cliff. Jim, a.s.suming that the sheriff knew all, told him of the ident.i.ty of the body. The sheriff saw a chance for money in it-if I do you an injustice, Schlager, you'll correct me."

"Go right ahead. Don't mind me. I'll take my medicine."

"Very well. Schlager adopted the ready-made theory which Mr. Jax had prepared for him, so to speak, that the body was washed ash.o.r.e; and arranged, with the connivance of Doctor Breed, the medical officer, to bury it as an unknown. For this perversion of their duty, Mr. Blair rewarded them handsomely. As I understand it, he dreaded any publicity attaching itself to Hedgerow House and his family."

"G.o.d knows I had suffered enough of that!" murmured Blair.

"Let us hope it is now ended. To avoid this, Mr. Blair was willing even to let the supposed murderer, whom he believed to be Sedgwick, go unscathed of justice. By chance, however, I saw the body on the beach.

The most important discovery of all, I missed at that time very stupidly-the more so in that I had a clue, in the character of the a.s.sault upon Sedgwick-but I could not overlook the fact that the corpse had not been washed ash.o.r.e. Moreover, the matter of the manacles stimulated my interest. Not until the inquest, however, did I realize the really startling and unique feature of the case. There is where you and Doctor Breed made your fatal error, Mr. Sheriff."

"That's right. You saw the face when we lifted the lid, I s'pose."

"No. You were too quick in replacing it."

"Then how did you get on to the thing?"

"From seeing the face after the body was returned to the court room."

"Hold on a bit," interrupted Lawyer Bain. "I remember there was a fuss about the corpse not being publicly shown for identification. Some of us insisted. The sheriff gave in. The coffin lid wasn't quarter off when Breed gave a yell and clapped it on again, and they took the body back to his house and shut themselves in with it for half an hour before they took it to the hall again. Naturally being suspicious, I looked at it pretty close; but I didn't see anything queer."

"Possibly you didn't notice a cut on the cheek?" suggested Kent.

"Yes. Dennett spoke of it and the sheriff shut him up. But what of it?

It might have been done in any one of a dozen ways."

"But it wasn't there when the body lay on the beach."

"In the rolling and tossing of the journey there might easily be minor scarifications," said Sedgwick.

"True. But, Frank, what did you suppose that sudden shift on the part of the officers of the law meant?"

"Perhaps that the body was not in fit condition to be viewed."

"In that case what could they have done to make it more fit?"

"Nothing, I suppose. I didn't consider that."

"I rather opined," said Lawyer Bain, "that some one had changed bodies on 'em."

"That's what made you so cussed curious, was it, Adam?" barked the sheriff.

"There was no exchange of bodies," said Kent. "But there was a change in the body itself."

"What kind of a change?" asked Sedgwick.

"Has it ever occurred to you to think that, after death, the hair grows fast?"

"I've heard it said," said Lawyer Bain, "that it grows faster than in life."

"And that it grows, not only on the head, but on the face as well?"

"The face! A woman's face?" exclaimed Sedgwick.

"No; a man's."

"What man?"

"The man in the coffin."

"Have you lost your mind, Chet? The body in the coffin was that of the woman who met me at the entrance to the Nook."

"No. It was the body of the man who, dressed in woman's clothing, met you at the Nook, and knocked you down with a stone flung overhand as not one woman in a thousand could have thrown it. That, in itself, ought to have suggested the secret to me, long before I discovered it."

"But how did you discover it?" inquired Sedgwick in bewilderment; "since you didn't see the growth of beard on the dead face yourself?"

"By the cut on the cheek. You see, the sheriff had failed to foresee that telltale beard. So, when in deference to Mr. Bain's protest against burial without a formal view of the body, they opened up the casket and saw the obvious change in the face, there was nothing for the officials to do but remedy their carelessness. They had the body taken to the house, and did the best they could. That cut on the cheek was a razor cut. Having realized that much, I had to deal thenceforth with the mystery of a dead man masquerading as a woman, and being abetted in the deception by the officers of the law-"

"Astraea a man!" broke in Preston Jax, his chin in a spasm. "No wonder she-he put up such a fight. Who was he?"

"My son, Wilfrid Blair," said Alexander Blair.

Sedgwick took a swift involuntary step toward Marjorie, but Kent was before him, setting a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Not now, Frank," he said. Then, turning to the girl-widow, "You see, Mrs. Blair," he said very gently, "it isn't so bad as you feared. There was no other woman in the case, no disgrace, no shame. You need feel nothing but pity for an unhappy wrecked mind, for which death was the happiest refuge."

Marjorie Blair sat very still and white. "Let me think!" she whispered.

"Let me think!"

"But the man's voice!" exclaimed Jax. "The voice of the man on the cliff!"

"Wilfrid Blair's," said Kent. "In the final moment he came to himself.

At last he resumed his voice. Up to then he had been, in voice, manner, thought, purpose, unconsciously playing a part."

"Astraea!" said Sedgwick and Jax in a breath.

"Yes. It was one of those strange and complete a.s.sumptions of personality which puzzle the alienists. Wilfrid Blair's diseased mind had fastened upon the strange history of his ancestress, and brooded on it until he became convinced that her spirit was reincarnated in himself. Undoubtedly his striking likeness to the portrait of Camilla Grosvenor powerfully aided the obsession. There were her letters, in the library, to give color to his unconscious imitation. As is common in this form of dementia, he was secretive. But there can be no doubt that from the time when he recognized in Preston Jax's advertis.e.m.e.nt, the call of Astraea's kindred soul, Hermann von Miltz, his one overwhelming desire was to reenact the drama of the last century, in his own a.s.sumed personality. Jax has told us how cleverly and secretly the plan for the double suicide was matured. This obsession must have been of long standing."

"We thought it melancholia," said Alexander Blair. "As you say, he had been very secretive. Very silent, too. We kept Gansett Jim with him as a sort of body-guard."

Marjorie Blair got to her feet. She was ghost-white; but her voice and eyes were steady, as she faced Kent.

"I must understand this all," she said. "Wilfrid's body is where?"

"In Annalaka churchyard."