Gabriel Conroy

by Bret Harte

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH BOTH JUSTICE AND THE HEAVENS FALL.

The day following the discovery of the murder of Victor Ramirez was one of the intensest excitement in One Horse Gulch. It was not that killing was rare in that pastoral community—foul murder had been done there upon the bodies of various citizens of more or less respectability, and the victim in the present instance was a stranger and a man who awakened no personal sympathy; but the suspicion that swiftly and instantly attached to two such important people as Mr. and Mrs. Conroy, already objects of severe criticism, was sufficient to exalt this particular crime above all others in thrilling interest. For two days business was practically suspended.

The discovery of the murder was made by Sal, who stumbled upon the body of the unfortunate Victor early the next morning during a walk on Conroy's Hill, manifestly in search of the missing man, who had not returned to the hotel that night. A few flippant souls, misunderstanding Miss Clark's interest in the stranger, asserted that he had committed suicide to escape her attentions, but all jocular hypothesis ceased when it became known that Gabriel and his wife had fled. Then came the report that Gabriel had been seen by a passing miner early in the day "shoving" the stranger along the trail, with his hand on his collar, and exchanging severe words. Then the willing testimony of Miss Clark that she had seen Mrs. Conroy in secret converse with Victor before the murder; then the unwilling evidence of the Chinaman who had overtaken Gabriel with the letter, but who heard the sounds of quarrelling and cries for help in the bushes after his departure; but this evidence was excluded from the inquest, by virtue of the famous Californian law that a Pagan was of necessity a liar, and that truth only resided in the breast of the Christian Caucasian, and was excluded from the general public for its incompatibility with Gabriel's subsequent flight, and the fact that the Chinaman, being a fool, was probably mistaken in the hour. Then there was the testimony of the tunnel-men to Gabriel's appearance on the hill that night. There was only one important proof not submitted to the public or the authorities—Mrs. Conroy's note—picked up by Sal, handed to Mrs. Markle, and given by her to Lawyer Maxwell. The knowledge of this document was restricted to the few already known to the reader.

A dozen or more theories of the motive of the deed at different hours of the day occupied and disturbed the public mind. That Gabriel had come upon a lover of his wife in the act of eloping with her, and had slain him out of hand, was the first. That Gabriel had decoyed the man to an interview by simulating his wife's handwriting, and then worked his revenge on his body, was accepted later as showing the necessary deliberation to constitute murder. That Gabriel and his wife had conjointly taken this method to rid themselves of a former lover who threatened exposure, was a still later theory. Towards evening, when One Horse Gulch had really leisure to put its heads together, it was generally understood that Gabriel and Mrs. Conroy had put out of their way a dangerous and necessarily rightful claimant to that mine which Gabriel had pretended to discover. This opinion was for some time—say two hours—the favourite one, agreeing as it did with the popular opinion of Gabriel's inability to discover a mine himself, and was only modified by another theory that Victor was not the real claimant, but a dangerous witness that the Conroys had found it necessary to dispose of. And when, possibly from some unguarded expression of Lawyer Maxwell, it was reported that Gabriel Conroy was an impostor under an assumed name, all further speculation was deemed unnecessary. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict against "John Doe, alias Gabriel Conroy," and One Horse Gulch added this injury of false pretence to other grievances complained of. One or two cases of horse-stealing and sluice-robbing in the neighbourhood were indefinitely but strongly connected with this discovery. If I am thus particular in citing these evidences of the various gradations of belief in the guilt of the accused, it is because they were peculiar to One Horse Gulch, and of course never obtained in more civilised communities.

It is scarcely necessary to say that one person in One Horse Gulch never wavered in her opinion of Gabriel's innocence, nor that that person was Mrs. Markle. That he was the victim of a vile conspiracy—that Mrs. Conroy was the real culprit, and had diabolically contrived to fasten the guilt upon her husband, Mrs. Markle not only believed herself, but absolutely contrived to make Lawyer Maxwell and Sal believe also. More than that, it had undoubtedly great power in restraining Sal's evidence before the inquest, which that impulsive and sympathetic young woman persisted in delivering behind a black veil and in a suit of the deepest mourning that could be hastily improvised in One Horse Gulch.

"Miss Clark's evidence," said the Silveropolis Messenger, "although broken by sobs and occasional expressions of indignation against the murderer, strongly impressed the jury as the natural eloquence of one connected with the tenderest ties to the unfortunate victim. It is said that she was an old acquaintance of Ramirez, who was visiting her in the hope of inducing her to consent to a happy termination of a life-long courtship, when the dastard hand of the murderer changed the bridal wreath to the veil of mourning. From expressions that dropped from the witness's lips, although restrained by natural modesty, it would not be strange if jealousy were shown to be one of the impelling causes. It is said that previous to his marriage the alleged Gabriel Conroy was a frequent visitor at the house of Miss Clark."

I venture to quote this extract not so much for its suggestion of a still later theory in the last sentence, as for its poetical elegance, and as an offset to the ruder record of the One Horse Gulch Banner, which, I grieve to say, was as follows:—

"Sal was no slouch of a witness. Rigged out in ten yards of Briggs' best black glazed muslin, and with a lot of black mosquito netting round her head, she pranced round the stand like a skittish hearse horse in fly-time. If Sal calculates to go into mourning for every man she has to sling hash to, we'd recommend her to buy up Briggs' stock and take one of Pat Hoolan's carriages for the season. There is a strong feeling among men whose heads are level, that this Minstrel Variety Performance is a bluff of the Messenger to keep from the public the real motives of the murderer, which it is pretty generally believed concerns some folks a little higher-toned than Sal. We mention no names but we would like to know what the Editor of the Messenger was doing in the counting-room of one of Pete Dumphy's emissaries at ten o'clock last evening. Looking up his bank account, eh? What's the size of the figures to-day? You hear us!"

At one o'clock that morning the Editor of the Messenger fired at the Editor of the Banner and missed him. At half-past one two men were wounded by pistol shots in a difficulty at Briggs' warehouse—cause not stated. At nine o'clock half a dozen men lounged down the main street and ascended the upper loft of Briggs' warehouse. In ten or fifteen minutes a dozen more from different saloons in the town lounged as indifferently in the direction of Briggs', until at half-past nine the assemblage in the loft numbered fifty men. During this interval a smaller party had gathered, apparently as accidentally and indefinitely as to purpose, on the steps of the little two-story brick Court House in which the prisoner was confined. At ten o'clock a horse was furiously ridden into town, and dropped exhausted at the outskirts. A few moments later a man hurriedly crossed the plaza toward the Court House. It was Mr. Jack Hamlin. But the Three Voices had preceded him, and from the steps of the Court House were already uttering the popular mandate.