THE BREWING OF THE STORM
The news spread like wildfire. Before nightfall every one in Rumley knew that the body of old Oliver Baxter had been found and that he had been foully murdered.
With darkness came the inevitable gathering of excited, bewildered people in the downtown streets. Groups of men, conversing in lowered, guttural voices, discussed the astounding and unexpected discovery. Women and children hung about the edges of these groups, or hurried from one to the other, drinking in the varied comments and opinions. They listened to men putting two and two together; they heard them connect seemingly unimportant details and weld them into convincing facts—for on all sides men were recalling once vague impressions and giving them now the value of convictions.
They were talking of Oliver October’s muddy shoes, of his strange behavior on the Lansing porch, of his unwillingness to allow the ditchers to go beyond a certain point in the swamp, of the rumor that Pete Hines had heard the violent quarrel between father and son, of the notebook found in the grass on the slope leading down into the slough, of the broken spade handle (they scowled with the thought of a blow forcible enough to splinter a stout hickory handle) and of the singular and significant fact that the heavy metal portion of the spade had never been found.
Every group had its individual who professed to be able to explain away certain of these “discrepancies.” He had it from persons who were in a position to know, having been present or within hearing distance when, earlier in the evening, Oliver October had accounted to the sheriff and his men (in the presence of his lawyer) for some of the suspicious features of the case. These peregrinating individuals—assuming no responsibility and by no means vouching for Oliver’s veracity—informed their dubious hearers that Oliver remembered stepping into a puddle of mud and water back of Josiah Smith’s house, said puddle having been created by Josiah’s street sprinkling wagon which always occupied the same spot between sunset and daybreak and invariably leaked all over the unpaved alley (a claim substantiated by the town sprinkler, himself, who admitted that he left his wagon out there every night and that it did leak dreadfully up to the time he had it repaired, but who also said he was not to blame if people preferred to walk up an alley instead of on the sidewalk). And Oliver had a very good reason for stopping the ditchers where he did: he had inspected the slough out beyond and was convinced, as an expert, that it could only be reclaimed at a far greater cost than the land was worth or ever would be worth. Moreover, the son of old man Baxter unhesitatingly and emphatically had declared that it wasn’t his father’s body at all, and refused point blank to have anything to do with it. The word passed up and down Clay Street that three doctors, including young Doc Lansing, had examined the corpus delicti and pronounced it to be that of a man in his seventies.
And then came the startling rumor that old man Baxter had gone to his safety deposit box in the vaults of the bank three days before his disappearance and had removed five one thousand dollar Liberty bonds! Rumor, pure and simple, yet accepted as fact by those who roamed the streets. The old man’s life insurance policy was discussed; and there was a story that he had openly threatened to make a new will, disinheriting his son. A grave, unanswered question, too, had to do with the money so lavishly spent by young Oliver—several thousand dollars in cash. Where had it come from? His father had called him a loafer, had charged him with coming back to Rumley to be supported in idleness. If Oliver had come home from the war “dead broke,” how was it that he had acquired several thousand dollars in cash? Thirty-five hundred dollars in banknotes—the whole town knew that the hardware merchant had drawn that amount from the bank—and five Liberty bonds that could be readily turned into money. Eighty-five hundred dollars! Simple as rolling off a log! Ha! There wasn’t much doubt as to where and how Oliver got his ready cash! But to split his own father’s head open with a spade, and throw him into a supposedly bottomless pit, and burn his clothes!
For now all those who thronged the streets were saying that Oliver October had murdered his father.
Across the street from the Baxter Block, where Link’s Undertaking Establishment was located, a morbid, motionless crowd eyed the doors guarded by two policemen. A single electric bulb at the rear of the main reception room shed a feeble and rather ghastly light over the dim interior. Every one knew that back of the reception room was the stock-room, lined with caskets standing on end behind glass doors, and beyond that was the workroom where a grim and awful thing was lying—alone!
The street leading to the Baxter residence was alive with people—curious, silent, awe-struck men and women who stared intently at the windows of the house and wondered what was going on behind the yellow shades. The slow, solemn shuffle of aimless feet, passing, pausing and repassing the house on the knoll, began early in the evening and seemed endless. Automobiles filled with people moved slowly along the highway skirting the dark, terrifying swamp—all eyes turned toward the loathesome tract as if expecting to glimpse some ghostly reënactment of the afternoon’s scene.
Inside the brightly lighted house a small company was assembled. It was not a cheerful company, nor yet a gloomy one. Acting on the advice of the delegation from Republican headquarters, Oliver reluctantly had canceled an engagement to address a mass meeting at the county seat. While no actual charge had been made against him, there was small reason to doubt that the grand jury, then in session, would bring in an indictment against him, perhaps on the morrow. The coroner, who now had charge of the body—or skeleton—had announced that he would hold an inquest on the following day. The sheriff had returned to the county seat after cautioning Oliver to keep his head and await developments.
“It looks pretty bad for you, Baxter,” he had said at the end of a long interview, “but there’s only one thing for you to do. People don’t want to believe you killed your father, and that’s a big advantage. So it’s up to you to stand your ground and face whatever comes. Don’t talk. Keep your trap closed. I called your uncle up on the telephone just before I came here this evening. He is coming over to-morrow morning to see if he can identify the body. Of course he can’t. You seem to be dead sure that it isn’t your father. So is Mr. Sikes and Undertaker Link. You all claim that your father was shorter by several inches and had lost several of his teeth. But your lawyer will look after all these points. Just sit tight, Baxter, and keep cool. Don’t leave town. Understand?”
The company in Oliver’s sitting-room included the redoubtable and venerable Messrs. Sikes and Link, Judge Shortridge, Mr. and Mrs. Sage and Jane, Dr. Lansing and Mrs. Grimes. Sammy Parr was expected. He was to bring in the news of the streets.
Oliver, a trifle pale but with a stubborn frown on his brow, listened calmly to the animated conversation that went on about him. He sat beside Jane on the sofa in the corner of the room. From time to time Mr. Sikes got up—with many a groan—and poked the blazing logs in the fireplace. He too was frowning. Mr. Link was cheerful.
“If the worst comes, Bill,” said the latter, repeating himself for perhaps the third time, “we can certainly prove that there is insanity in the family. There’s his uncle, old Horace Gooch. He’s as crazy as a loon.”
This was addressed familiarly to Judge William Shortridge, one time Justice of the Peace and now the Baxter lawyer.
Mr. Sikes snorted. “Only by marriage, only by marriage,” he growled. “Insanity by marriage is no defense.”
“I should like to know,” put in Mrs. Sage, “what possible motive Oliver could have had for killing his father.”
“Oliver has not been accused of killing his father, Madam,” Judge Shortridge reminded her.
“But if he did kill him,” announced Mr. Link earnestly—“now, mind you, I’m not even hinting that he did—but, the thing is, if he did do it, why, we can prove that he had the best motive in the world.”
“In God’s name,” gasped the Judge, startled out of his judicial composure, “what are you saying, Link? What motive could he have—”
“The best motive in the world, I claim,” said Mr. Link emphatically. “Insanity!”
“Don’t you know that insanity is not a motive?” snapped the Judge.
“As for Pete Hines saying he heard Oliver and his father quarreling that night,” said Mrs. Grimes, who had been silent for a long time, “I wouldn’t believe him on oath. If I was to meet him on the street and he was to say it was a nice, bright, sunshiny day, I’d hurry home and take off my rain-soaked clothes.”
“Help yourself to another cigar, Judge,” said Oliver from the sofa.
“Any objections, ladies?” In turn, each lady shook her head. “I was about to say, my friends” (with a fixed stare at Mr. Link), “that in case the grand jury finds a true bill against Oliver, I consider myself, as his counsel, quite capable of deciding what kind of a defense we shall put up—and it will not be insanity, Silas Link.”
“Well, what will it be?” demanded Mr. Link.
“Patience,” returned Judge Shortridge.
“That’s no defense,” protested the undertaker. “Whoever heard of a man being acquitted of murder on the grounds of patience?”
“Will it make it any clearer to you if I state that all we have to do is to be patient while the State is trying to prove this absolutely unknown and absolutely unidentified carcass is that of Oliver Baxter? We’ll make ’em prove that it is his skeleton. We’ll make ’em prove to the day just how long it has been out there in the swamp. We’ll be able to prove that Oliver October had in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand dollars on deposit in a Chicago bank and that he spent a lot of it hunting for his father. And, as I said before, we’ll make ’em prove that Oliver Baxter is dead. They’ll have a hell of a time—er—a very difficult time proving that our old friend is dead. For all we know—or anybody else knows—that body may have been out there for ten or fifteen years. Doc Lansing here says it’s possible, and Doctor Robinson the same thing. They can’t, to save their lives, produce a medical expert who will swear positively it was out there only a year and four months. Isn’t that a fact, Doc?”
“Yes,” replied young Lansing. “The processes of disintegration are so—”
“And this skeleton is said to be that of a fairly tall man,” said Mr. Sage, “whereas I should unhesitatingly say that Brother Baxter was not more than five feet six.”
“We must not overlook the fact,” said Lansing, pursing his lips, “that old age may have caused Mr. Baxter’s frame to shrink somewhat from its original stature—er—ah—we all know that he was considerably bent and shriveled and that he was decidedly—er—bow-legged. Now the bone structure of a human being more or less assumes deceptive proportions after—er—the confining tissue, the cartilages and so forth have—ah—we will say disintegrated—permitting the—”
“Ollie was never more than five foot six or seven,” interrupted Mr. Sikes impatiently. “In his stocking feet. Now, as I said before, if I was sure it is Ollie’s corpus delicti they have got and if it could be proved to me that he was murdered by that boy setting over there in the corner, I would be one of the first men to head a mob to string him up to the limb of a tree.”
He glared around the room as if challenging any one present—including Oliver—to question his right to do just what he said he would do—if!
But nobody paid any attention to him. They had heard him say it before.
“I don’t see how you can be so unmoved, so calm, Oliver dear,” whispered Jane in her lover’s ear. “Just think what they are talking about—and as if you were not here at all.”
He stroked her hand. “I’ve been thinking of something else, Jane.”
“Of me, I suppose, and the silly notion you have of releasing me from my promise.”
“I do release you, dear.”
“I refuse to release you—so that’s that, as mother says. I am ready and willing to have father marry us to-night, Oliver.”
“We will have to wait, dear,” he said, rather wistfully.
Lizzie Meggs appeared at the sitting-room door.
“That’s the third time the telephone has rung, Oliver,” she announced. “Hadn’t I better answer it?”
He shook his head. “No, Lizzie. Let ’em ring. It’s probably the newspapers—”
“You’d better let her answer, Oliver,” broke in Mrs. Grimes anxiously. “It may be some of your friends calling up to sympathize—”
“All my real friends are here, Aunt Serepta—except Sammy. We can’t be answering the telephone all night.”
“This last one sounded like long distance, Oliver,” said Lizzie.
“How does long distance sound, Lizzie?” he asked, with a smile. “Never mind. You needn’t answer. Let ’em ring. Orders is orders. I told you half an hour ago not to take that receiver off the hook.”
Mrs. Grimes followed the servant out of the room, closing the hall door after her.
“How many times, Lizzie Meggs, do I have to tell you not to call Mr. Baxter Oliver when there’s company here?” she said sharply.
“I can’t help it. He’d drop dead if I called him Mr. Baxter. We’ve called each other by our first names ever since we were kids in school together. Say, how would it sound if he was to begin calling me Miss Meggs? It’s the same thing, isn’t it? We went to high-school together and—”
“Now don’t be saucy, Lizzie. I admit it’s nicer to be democratic and all that but it’s not proper, and you know it. I don’t know what we’re coming to. That young fellow that comes up here to see you calls me Serepty and then he turns around and calls you Miss Meggs. I don’t see—”
“He has known me only a few weeks and he’s known you all his life,” retorted Lizzie stiffly.
The front door opened suddenly and in walked Sammy Parr. Both women uttered a startled exclamation.
“Excuse haste,” he said, tossing his hat and gloves on a chair. “I’m back. Say, gee whiz, everybody in town is out on Clay Street, Aunt Serepty. Lots of them down this way, strolling past—”
“What are people saying, Sammy?” she broke in, grasping his arm.
“Well,” he began, after a moment’s hesitation, “there’s a good deal of talk—but let’s go in where the others are.”
Lizzie Meggs followed them into the sitting-room, nervously twisting her hard and capable fingers.
“Much excitement downtown, Sammy?” inquired Oliver, arising.
“The streets are crowded. Not much excitement, however. Everybody seems to be sort of knocked silly.”
“What are they saying?” demanded Judge Shortridge.
“Well, I hate to tell you, but as far as I can make out, Judge, there seems to be a general feeling that—that Oliver did it,” said Sammy, wiping his moist forehead with the back of a hand that shook slightly.
“Snap judgment,” said the lawyer, after silence had reigned for a few seconds. “That is always the way with the ignorant and uninformed. Nothing to worry about, Oliver. They will be on your side to-morrow when they understand the situation a little better. It’s always the way with a crowd.”
Josephine Sage spread her hands in a gesture of contempt. “ ‘What fools these mortals be,’ ” she declaimed theatrically.
“But we cannot ignore public opinion,” cried Jane miserably. “It is hard to fight public opinion. Oh, Oliver, I am so—so worried.”
“Don’t you worry, Janie,” he said softly, putting his arm about her. “Nothing will come of all this. We will sweep away every suspicion—”
“Public opinion changes over night,” said Mr. Sage. “The light of understanding—”
“The public!” broke in his wife scornfully. “What is the public? I can tell you, my friends. It is the most fickle thing in all this world. No matter how long, how faithfully you serve the public, it turns upon you in time, like the adder, and stings you to death. It feeds you with praise, it fattens you with applause, it clothes you in garments of gold, and then it strips you clean and leaves you to starve. It turns its back on you and fattens another favorite. You can’t tell me anything about the blooming public. I know it to the core, and I am jolly well fed up with it.”
“Bravo!” cried the Judge. “And let me add, Miss Judge, it’s easy to put a ring through the public nose and lead it around in circles.”
“Yes, but the thing is,” broke in Mr. Link, “they’re accusing Oliver of murder. If they make up their minds he’s guilty—well, it’ll take a lot of evidence to convince ’em he ain’t.”
“My dear man,” said Mrs. Sage, “I was the defendant in the most celebrated murder trial ever known in London.”
“Bless my soul, Josephine!” gasped her husband, startled.
“And I was sentenced to be hanged by the neck till dead,” she finished in tragic tones.
“Mercy!” cried Mrs. Grimes weakly.
“My dear wife, have you gone stark, staring mad?”
“Not a bit of it. Would you like to know how I got out of it in the end? I was able to show that my beast of a husband committed the murder.”
“Bless my soul!” again fell from the lips of the poor minister.
“The magistrate was such a bally ass. He brayed all through my best scene during an uninterrupted run of forty weeks—and there was nothing I could do about it. You see he was an actor-manager and there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can keep an actor-manager from hogging—”
“Thank God!” murmured Mr. Sage, mopping his brow. “It was in a play?”
“Certainly, my dear,” said she patiently. “I wore this very dress in the trial scene.”
It was after eleven o’clock when Oliver’s friends departed. He stood on the porch and watched them drive off in the two automobiles. A few persons had stopped at the bottom of the drive to see who were in the cars. The flaring head-lights fell upon white, indistinct faces and then almost instantly left them in pitch darkness.
“I wish you had let Mr. Sage marry you and Jane to-night, Oliver,” said Mrs. Grimes, at his side on the top step. “You have the license and everything, and it could all have been over in a few minutes. And Jane begged you so hard.”
“I couldn’t do it, Aunt Serepta,” he said dejectedly. “I don’t know what is ahead of me. I may be in jail before I’m a day older.” He gave her a wry, bitter smile as he put his arm over her shoulder and walked beside her into the house. “Pleasant thought, isn’t it, old dear?—as the celebrated Miss Judge would say.”
Clay Street was almost deserted as Lansing and Sammy Parr drove through it after leaving the Baxter place. The Sages were in the former’s car. In front of the hotel Sammy, who was some distance ahead and who had dropped the two old men at Silas Link’s home, slowed down and waited for Lansing to draw alongside.
“Say, Doc, it seems queer to me that there’s practically nobody in the streets,” he said. “An hour ago you couldn’t have got through here without blowing the horn every ten feet. Women and children all over the place.”
“It’s after eleven, Sammy. I daresay the thrill has worn off and everybody’s gone home to bed.”
“Rumley is not an all night town,” remarked Mrs. Sage from the back seat. “It used to go to bed en masse at nine o’clock. I daresay the movies keep them up later than prayer-meeting did in the old days.”
“I don’t mind saying to you all that there was a lot of ugly talk earlier in the evening,” said Sammy uneasily. “A lot of nasty talk. I didn’t tell Oliver, but I heard more than one man say he ought to be strung up.”
“Oh, Sammy, do you think—” began Jane, in a sudden agony of alarm.
“Nonsense!” cried the minister, instantly sensing her fear. “Such things don’t happen in these days and in this part of the country. The people will let the law take its course. Have no fear on that score.”
“Well, anyhow, it looks mighty queer to me,” said Sammy, tactlessly shaking his head. “I don’t like this awful stillness. It isn’t like this even on ordinary nights.”
Jane clutched Lansing’s arm and shook it violently.
“Doctor Lansing,” she cried, “we must return to Oliver’s house immediately. He will have to come over to our house—Better still, Sammy, you must drive him up to the city. To-night. At once. I am frightened. Something terrible is afoot. I know it. I feel it. It is so still. Look! Why aren’t the street lamps in Maple Avenue lighted? It is as dark as—”
“By jingo, Lansing!” exclaimed Sammy, starting up from his seat to peer over the windshield. “See that? Men running across Maple Avenue. ’Way up yonder where that arc light is at Fiddler Street. Three or four men. Didn’t you see them?”
“We must beat it back to Oliver’s,” half shouted Lansing, excitedly.
“Take the women home first,” ordered Sammy, “and then come back. I’ll go on ahead.”
“Wait!” commanded Mr. Sage. “Drive on up Maple, Sammy. Follow those men. See what they are up to. They are headed for the swamp road. Lansing and I will follow you in a jiffy. Drive like the devil!” he shouted in ringing tones.
“No, no, no!” screamed Jane. “The other way! To Oliver’s! I will not go home. I am going to him! Turn around—turn around! Do you hear me?”
“Where in God’s name are the police?” cried Josephine.
“We can’t take you back there,” cried Lansing. “Hell may be to pay. It’s no place for women, Jane. Sit still! I’ll have you home in two minutes.”
“I will jump out! I swear to heaven I will,” she cried shrilly.
“Turn back!” commanded Jane’s mother. “I am not afraid of them. Jane is not afraid. We cannot desert Oliver if he is in danger. Please God he may not be. Turn back, I say!”
“Yes!” cried the minister. “We must go to Oliver—all of us!”
The two cars made reckless turns in the narrow street and were off like the wind.