Chapter XXVIII PROBING A DEEP WOUND
Alden began with a stiff, quaint bow to his little audience. It was easy to see that he had fallen into the mannerism of a court. "In making my statement it is not necessary for me to tell from what source I obtained any part of my information, or what is inference from information. I will say exactly what I now suppose to have happened upon the morning of the day on which Mr. Claxton was killed with unparalleled brutality, and his wife shot."
Durgan felt rebellion in its keenest form at this beginning, but sat in silence.
When Alden had once begun it was obvious that he felt the relief of open speech. He told in detail how he believed 'Dolphus to have been sent to Mr. Claxton's with a note announcing Beardsley's visit, which caused Miss Hermione to send the maids and Miss Bertha out of the house.
"But how," asked Alden, "did Beardsley come to the house without observation? I have found again and again that the thing that is hardest to detect has been done in the simplest and most obvious way. Negative evidence is often no evidence at all; and the thing done most openly more often escapes remark than an attempt at secrecy. In this case two neighbors saw the maids go out on their errand; one saw the dark-faced boy enter. She swore he was an Italian music boy, while in fact he was a mulatto. The servant of a neighbor said she saw the boy leave the house again. They both agreed that he was long and lanky. Everyone else in the neighborhood, with a chance of seeing, testified that no boy came or went. I believe that Beardsley came, as the boy came, in an open way, and was admitted by Miss Hermione. Again, one neighbor swears that she saw the two maids go down the street together; another, that only one went down alone while she was looking. Cross-examined, she could not be sure whether the one maid she saw was the cook, or housemaid, or charwoman, but only that she came out of the Claxton house. The other neighbors had not seen any woman leave the house. This shows what such evidence is worth. I believe Beardsley left the house disguised in the clothes of the boy. The boy was almost grown, Beardsley not large. No doubt, being in the habit of personating spirits and juggling, escape would be no difficulty to him. I am still unable to suggest any motive for the crime." Alden paused.
"Go on." The words were spoken breathlessly by Bertha.
Alden went on solemnly. "I think, Hermione, you knew the boy's message to be from Beardsley. You must have admitted Beardsley to the house, Hermione! In the night you helped the boy to escape. It is not possible that you did not know that Beardsley had committed the crime. I am convinced that you helped him also to escape. One possible explanation of your action, and the subsequent concealment, is that he extracted some oath of secrecy which you wrongly considered binding."
There was a breathless silence.
"But I think you have too much good sense to consider such a compulsory promise binding. You have had another reason."
There was still silence.
"The fact that you did not denounce him points to the fact that you helped Beardsley's escape. The fact that you sent the mulatto to Mrs. Durgan's address proves that you knew where Beardsley had taken refuge. Beardsley went to Mrs. Durgan's house, not to his former lodgings. She must have known that some disaster had happened if he returned in disguise; she must quickly have known from the papers the extent of his guilt. She certainly had him in her house ill a week after—really very ill, for Mr. Durgan, on one of his rare visits, found two hospital nurses attending him. It was said to be a severe case of pleurisy with complications; and he has been, or has pretended to be, more or less of an invalid ever since. But before his illness he acted his part well. He certainly held his séances regularly for a number of evenings after the crime. I made very strict inquiry at the time of several members of this circle as to its nature, because of the connection Mr. Claxton had with it. Beardsley went into his trances, and spoke with strange tongues, and what not, during that week. I knew this because several of his disciples, who believed in his dealings with the unseen world, tried to call up the spirits of Mr. and Mrs. Claxton, so unhappily departed, and entreated for some information as to their murderer. The villain had not the hardihood to personate his own victims."
Alden paused suddenly, and demanded of the sisters: "You remember hearing of the incident?"
Bertha, her face flushed and excited, gave a hasty "Yes." Miss Claxton made an indifferent motion of assent. She preserved a uniform expression of great sadness. She seemed to take hardly any special interest in anything said.
"This boy, 'Dolphus, went also straight to Mrs. Durgan's house. He has been sheltered by Beardsley and Mrs. Durgan; he has been Beardsley's valet ever since. Mrs. Durgan may have hid them both in the first instance out of pity; or she, too, may have had another reason. She would fear to send them away later lest her connivance in their hiding should become known."
"Consider," said Durgan. "Do you think my wife, or any other woman, would voluntarily live in daily terror of being killed by such a madman as you describe?"
"Is there no adequate motive that you can suggest?" Alden returned.
"Love," said he. "But I am certain that my wife has not been in love."
Hermione Claxton looked at Durgan for a moment; a tinge of color and an abatement of her sorrow were evident. Then she relapsed into her former attitude.
Alden stood in front of her, watching her changing expression with impassioned eagerness. "In the name of God, Hermione," he cried solemnly, "why do you shield this man? Why do you still wish to shield him? Why are you glad that Mr. Durgan should believe that love does not exist between him and Mrs. Durgan?"
His sudden manner of agonized affection, and words that came like a cry from the heart, brought a hush of trembling expectation. Bertha gazed intently at her sister, unconscious of the tears of excitement that were running over her own eyes. Durgan, who had never thought to see Alden so moved, felt the utmost wonder. But the fragile, faded woman, to whom the passionate question had been addressed, faced her questioner with no other change in the calm front she bore than an added degree of sadness.
"Hermione," cried Alden again, "why did you conceal this man's guilt from me at the time, and why do you still wish to conceal it?"
"Herbert," she replied very gently, "you have no evidence of his guilt."
"I have," he replied.
Durgan felt himself start nervously. Such a statement from this keen legal mind was like a declaration of proof.
The effect of the words upon Miss Hermione was a visible shudder which ran through her frame.
"Evidence?" she said, as if still doubting; but terror was written on her face.
"Two days ago I went to Hilyard at the summons of the doctor and constable. The colored prisoner, called Adolphus Courthope, was supposed to be dying, and desired to see me. When I went, he asked me to take down a confession and a statement, parts of which supplied links in the story I have told you. The doctor was witness to the interview. Courthope swore that Beardsley was the criminal."
Miss Claxton looked at him steadily. "What reason have you to assume that what he said is true?"
"In all those parts where I can test its truth it appears to be true. He referred me to Bertha for the fact that she aided his escape at night."
"Birdie will not corroborate that. She will tell you nothing."
"He would hardly have asked her to corroborate a lie," said Alden. "He told me that when in New York he knew he was dying, his conscience caused him to bring some documents which he believed to incriminate Beardsley; that he gave them to you by appointment on the night of Eve's death; that after giving them he discovered that Adam's wife had been spying on the interview and had followed you up the hill. She showed him a certain place where she saw you hide these letters. He added, in the most matter-of-fact way, that he then killed Eve for her treachery to you, and because she would only make mischief."
Bertha stood up in great wrath. "How can you say that my sister did such things as this? No word of this is true. How can you believe a man who is a murderer?"
Alden went on looking at Hermione. "I went to the tree of which he gave me a rough drawing."
He took from his coat two packets of old letters, with their wrapping of oil-silk, which he had unfastened.
"I have read them," he said. "I did not wish to do so without your permission and that of Mr. Durgan, as they chiefly belong to his wife; but it was necessary, and the fact that I found them there, and also their contents, prove the most unlikely part of his tale to be true—that you have trafficked secretly with such a man as he, and crept out at night to meet him and hide documents which——" He paused half-way through the sentence; his voice broke, and the tremor coming at so strong a moment, brought all the little gracious ways of his long friendship and service for Hermione to their minds. The strange scene vibrated with a throb of sorrow.
"Herbert," she said falteringly, "you have indeed become my enemy, concerting with this poor wretch to outwit me, spying upon my most private actions."
"Nay, Hermione; I did not even ask the man for his evidence. I was forced, in the name of common justice, and above all, of justice to you, to hear it; and I am justified in what I have done since, because I have done it to save you from yourself."
"I beg your pardon," said she. "For a moment I spoke unjustly; but, whatever your motives, you have become my enemy. Those letters were stolen by a servant to injure a master who, whatever else his faults, had treated him with unvarying kindness. They were given to me under the mistaken idea that I could use them for my own advantage. I cannot; nor can you."
"I read them, Hermione, because, without suspicion and by mere accident, I had read your telegram to Charlton Beardsley the other day."
She rose up now. There was a movement of her small clasped hands, as tho she wrung them together.
"When I read it at the post-office, merely to aid in its transmission, I saw its significance only too plainly. I withheld it for a day. Then I had it sent by an agent whom I could trust, and whom I instructed to watch the house of the recipient. I could not have connived at the man's escape. Had he tried to get away after receiving your wire, I should have been justified in his arrest."
"Did you have my message sent from Hilyard?" she asked suddenly.
"No. From New York. But it was the exact message."
She was white to the lips. "It had no significance coming from New York." She lifted both hands with a gesture of despair.
Instinctively he chose quick words to comfort her. "No, you wanted to warn him against coming here! But Beardsley had gone. I suppose he had got some other warning. He had fled three days before. My men could gain no information."
She was comforted. Some color returned to her face.
Alden spoke out once more. "In Heaven's name, what motive have you for seeking this man's freedom? Why hide these letters? They are written between Beardsley and Mrs. Durgan. What secret of yours can they contain?"
She looked at him with unutterable pain in her face, but gave no word or sound.
"Hermione!" he cried; "this trickster had only been a few months upon this continent when this crime was committed; and during those few months you gave me to understand that I was your dearest and only intimate friend. We were together constantly; we were looking forward to marriage. It cannot be possible that, at that same time, you contracted a friendship—shall I say an affection?—for this man? You spoke of him to me as a person whose pretensions you despised, whose slight acquaintance with your father you deplored; and, beyond this, you told me that you had never seen him. Am I to believe that, in spite of all this, he was your lover?"
"My lover!" She repeated the word with white lips, and remained gazing at him for some minutes as if paralyzed with surprise. Then with a gesture of that dignity which only a mind innocent in thought and act can command, she rose and turned away, with no further word, toward the staircase that led from the room.
"You know that is not true," cried Bertha to Alden fiercely. She stood up as a man would who was ready to make good the word with a blow. Then she called: "Hermione! Hermione! Come back. Don't you see that Mr. Alden has no choice but to give this Beardsley up to justice, and hand over all the evidence he has in these letters to the police?"
Hermione turned to Alden again. "Is that true? Do not deceive me in the hope of making me confess anything; but tell me truly, do not say you have no choice."
But he could not abandon the point which gave him such unbounded astonishment. "What motive have you for protecting him? Why do you love him?—for you do love him, Hermione."
"I am asking you whether it is no longer in my power to protect him, should I wish to do so."
"Oh, my dear; give me some notion why you want to save him."
The term of affection, if not used between them for the first time, was certainly now first used before others. A slow flush mantled her faded, sensitive face.
"Alas! Herbert, is it not clear now why I should have kept my secret from you, if your conscience is such that you can concede no mercy to a criminal? You may be right. You may have no choice but to wield the law, and the law only. But if I had a choice, you cannot blame me for not telling you, who admit you have none. Do you not know that I have loved you—you only? Do you think I could have endured to be separated from you for a slight or a low motive, for a whim, or for a duty about which I felt the slightest doubt? And nothing has taken away the need for my silence. I cannot tell you my motive, or give you any indication whether the clue you now hold is true or false, or whether these letters will help you to do justice or lead you astray, or why I went out to get them at night, or why I put them where Bertha would not have found them in the event of my death. I put these letters where I could find them should a certain contingency arise in my life, and where, failing that, they would be lost. I will not tell you more, or give you leave to use them."
"Hermione!" cried Bertha, the energy of a long distress in her tone, "for my sake, can you not help us to understand? I have tried to be brave; and if you will not tell, I will stand by you in anything; but my courage is all gone now. I cannot bear this mystery and disgrace."
The elder sister looked at her with tenderness and pity. It was a lingering look that a mother might cast on a child doomed to a crippled life. But she gave no answer, and went up the stairs.