“Murder! On the third-floor fire-escape. The watchman is there.”
The officer spun round. “On your way, boys!” he ordered. “Front and back!” He turned to Caruth. “Who did it?” he demanded.
If the young man hesitated, it was only for an instant. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s my valet. He robbed me and fled. I discovered it a moment later, and started after him. He had disappeared. The watchman found his body. His pockets were empty. Some confederate must have been waiting for him.”
The two men were alone in the hall. The other officers had all vanished, some through the rear entrance; some up the stairs. The crowd that was to come had not yet gathered, though the sound of running footsteps outside showed that its first units were coming, attracted by the clatter of the patrol.
The officer, used to scenes of excitement, and knowing the importance of ideas expressed before those in touch with tragedy had time consciously or unconsciously to mould their opinions, waited to ask one more question before he too hurried to the rear.
“Suspect anybody?” he demanded. “Seen anybody suspicious?”
Caruth looked him straight in the face. “No,” he lied. “No, I’ve seen nobody. As I said, the man robbed me, and I suppose some confederate killed him for his booty.”
When the officer had gone, Caruth turned and with leaden feet climbed the weary stairs that led to his room. He did not stop at the third floor, nor go again to inspect the lump of pallid flesh that alone remained of his servant. In fact, for the time he had altogether forgotten Wilkins. The murder had driven the murdered man from his mind.
He had answered the officer on the spur of the moment, thinking only to shield the girl, and not considering the possible—yes, the inevitable—consequences. The words once said, he would have given worlds to recall them, and yet he knew that he would only have reiterated them, if given the chance.
He would have no such chance, however. The true tale of the night’s events would have been preposterous enough at best. He could fancy how a hard-headed American jury would have listened to it, and how even a fourth-rate lawyer would have proved its impossibility. But, at all events, in telling it, he would have been telling the truth, and would have had the consciousness of rectitude to support him.