The Millbank Case: A Maine Mystery of To-day

by George Dyre Eldridge

A prying reporter got an inkling that something was going on, and in pursuing his enquiry revealed the hints he had discovered to Henry Matthewson. A position of financial importance was suddenly offered the reporter in a Western city and the story never was printed. But the Matthewsons were, from that moment, on their guard. A few months later, a fire broke out in the record room of the Public Lands Office and valuable records were destroyed. This did not attract especial attention, for the press had repeatedly called public attention to the existence of this very danger, and merely contented itself with shouting “I told you so,” with a great deal of strenuousness.

What was not known, save to Judge Parlin and, probably, some of the office force, was the extreme discrimination shown by the fire in destroying the very books on which proof of the forgeries depended. Certain remarks incautiously dropped by Judge Parlin let out facts from which the scandal took shape, with charges freely made by political opponents of the Matthewsons, which could now be proved only by papers in Judge Parlin’s hands, since the destruction of the original books. This was the Range 16 Scandal in its original form.

Up to this time, Judge Parlin had not even taken his wife into his confidence, but as the matter took more and more of public form, he deemed it necessary that she should know, especially as he had begun to suspect that the men who were against him would hesitate at nothing—not even murder, to conceal the truth. It was an incautious hint dropped by him to this effect that first alarmed her, and this alarm was speedily increased to terror by threats that were conveyed to the judge from time to time, though as to the source he was never able to reach a solution. “He laughed at them,” she said, telling of these threats; “but that is a man’s way. A woman sits and thinks and dreads, because she cannot act. In the dead night, I heard footsteps prowling about the place—or thought I did, and I lay in an agony of terror—not for myself, but because it was not for me that the danger threatened. When he was at Norridgewock at court and would drive home after dark, I sat and trembled until I had him again in my arms and knew that once more the chance had passed him by. If there came a ring at the bell late at night, I would plead that he let me answer it, until I wrought myself into a nervous terror that I cannot even now remember without a shudder. It was the worse because he was so brave and never for a moment felt afraid. When he laughed at the threats, I grew cold to my very heart, for my fear for him told me that the danger he scorned was so real that some day it would fall and crush him. A woman’s love knows some things that a man’s brain can’t compass!”

It seemed, however, that he attached importance of one kind to these threats, such as to induce him to guard the papers carefully, pending the time when he could duplicate them and place one set where they could not possibly be reached. But before this was even undertaken, Mrs. Parlin had become so alarmed that she urged her husband to abandon the matter and destroy the papers and let this be known where it would cause a cessation of the annoyance to which they were both subjected. But here she found him inflexible, and at last her terror reached such a pitch that she determined herself to steal and destroy the papers.

It was some time before she was able to carry this resolve into execution, and during the delay she reached a point of terror little short of insanity. At last, under the impulse of fear intensified by a particularly boldly expressed threat, she took desperate chances and, as desperate chances will do at times, succeeded. She took the papers from her husband’s desk almost under his very eyes, and ever after had the cruel pain of knowing that the trust she had betrayed was so great that no suspicion of the betrayal had ever crossed his mind.

Once in possession of the papers, she had, as she told Trafford, failed in the courage to destroy them, and had easily persuaded herself that they might at some time be an actual means of protection to her husband. Therefore she had hidden them, as stated, and thus finally they had passed into Theodore Wing’s hands to prove his death warrant.

The judge was much broken over the loss of the papers, the facts in regard to which could not be kept from the public. For a time, the scandal blazed up and the Matthewsons had to meet charges which could be proved by no one and which, therefore, they were the more bold in denying. Then public interest was turned to other issues, only to be aroused again for a time by Judge Parlin’s candidacy for the highest State court and his defeat, which he did not long survive.

“But when,” she demanded, “could Theodore have found these papers?”

“About two years ago, I should say; perhaps a little earlier,” said Trafford. “At least, it was then known that he had found them, for on no other theory can we explain the ransacking of his desk. He then began to carry them about with him, and the interests involved, which had rested quiet since your husband’s loss, and especially since his death, became disturbed again and active.”

“Then it must be the Matthewsons or Hunters who murdered him,” exclaimed the woman, under a sudden breaking in of light.