Murder Point: A Tale of Keewatin

by Coningsby Dawson

His present purpose was, if possible, to gather such proofs from the dead man's clothing as would exclude the doubt of foul play, and establish as a fact Granger's assertion that the corporal had arrived at his death by the accident of drowning.

In the meanwhile, he was not meeting with much success in his search, for the right arm of the dead man was pressed so rigidly across his breast that it could not be moved without breaking; the hand was concealed and the fingers tangled in the folds of his dress, as if even in the last moments of life he had been conscious that he kept a secret hidden there. Only with violence could it be forced aside, and to this the priest was averse; he commenced to cut away the clothing, above downwards from the neck, below upwards from the belt. The cloth ripped easily, having become rotten with the wet, but the trimmings of fur were tough and obstinate to separate. When he had slit the capote and under-garments above and below the arm in two big flaps, he rolled them back, laying bare the breast, where he discovered a silver chain which went about the neck, the pendant to which, wrapped in the portion of the dress that had covered it, was clutched in the icy hand. He now cut away the stuff from around the hand, and, with a severity which seemed both profane and cruel, bent back the fingers one by one, compelling them to release their hold, so that the bones were heard to crack.

"What are you doing?" cried Granger, angrily, being roused by the sound from an unsatisfactory examination of the mixed feelings which had arisen within him on discovering that Spurling, whom he had just been regretting, was not dead. "Why must we torture him? Why can't we leave him alone, and lay him decently in his grave?"

"Perhaps in order that we may prevent you from being hanged."

"From being hanged! You mistake me for Spurling, Père Antoine; your memory must be failing. What have I done to deserve such courtesy at the hands of Fate? Why should men want to hang me?"

"For the murder of Strangeways."

Granger stood back, and drew himself erect, as if by asserting his physical cleanness and manhood he could refute the accusation. He lifted up his head and gazed with a fixed stare on the landscape, seeing nothing. Yes, it was true, they could make that accusation; there was sufficient evidence for suspecting him and, with the aid of a few lies and inaccurate statements on the part of his enemies—Robert Pilgrim, for instance, and Indians whom he had offended—sufficient evidence might be got together to bring him to the gallows. A fitting ending that for the son of the ambitious mother who had stinted herself and planned for his success, and a most appropriate sequel to the example of reckless bravery set by the last two generations of his father's house!

Dimly, slowly, as he stood there in the northern icy drizzle, with his eyes on the muddy river hurrying toward its freedom between jagged banks, he came very wretchedly to realise that there was only one way in which he could save himself, a way, albeit, which both his loyalty and honour forbade, by becoming ardent in the pursuit and effecting the capture of Spurling, that so he might prove his innocence. An emotion of shame and self-disgust throbbed through him that it should have been possible for him, even for a moment, to entertain such a coward's thought as that. He shook himself free from temptation and looked about. What was Père Antoine doing? What had he meant by saying that he was perhaps preventing him from being hanged? Did he still believe him to be guilty, as he had evidently done at first?

Père Antoine was intent upon his undertaking; when asked, he only shook his head, saying, "If I believed you guilty, why should I endeavour to find the signs which will prove you innocent? Would I do that, do you think, if I believed you to be a guilty man?"

Granger was softened by those words; they meant a great deal to him at such a time, spoken as they were curtly by one who was so eager to rehabilitate his character before all the world that he had no moments to waste in argument. They were far more convincing to him of the true opinion which le Père held of him than an hour consumed in apology, which would have been an hour spent in idleness. He came and knelt down by the side of the priest, and gazed on the results of his work. He saw the cold white face of Strangeways with the eyes set wide, staring upwards at the clouds. Their gaze did not seem to concentrate as in life, but like that of a well-painted portrait, while the eyes themselves remained fixed, wandered everywhere. Yet, when he settled his attention upon them, they seemed to look at him alone as if, since the lips were silent, they were trying to speak those words which the body had come to utter; if he turned his head away for a moment and then looked back, they seemed themselves to have changed their direction and to be staring again incuriously out on space, having abandoned hope of delivering their message. And he saw the naked throat and neck, and the marks where the teeth of the yellow-faced husky had clashed and met; last of all he saw the silver chain and the pendant attached, which Père Antoine had at that moment succeeded in freeing from the cold clenched hand.