“You—you’ve seen Hazel?” he stammered.
“No; not yet. But let me continue. That night, perhaps fearing interruption, the girl had no chance to examine the contents of the box, which she hid somewhere in her room. Next day she took the box down town with her, wishing to get rid of it, and managed during the afternoon to return it to Judge Ferguson’s office. But she had no time to put it back in the cupboard, because she had left the post office downstairs alone. So she simply placed it on the table and afterward got rid of the keys as soon as possible.
“No one suspected her. Toby Clark was suspected, but not Hazel Chandler. Yet Hazel was in a quandary. She had in her possession a great deal of money, some valuable bonds, and a lot of useless papers belonging to Mrs. Ritchie. Naturally she confided in her sweetheart, not realizing even yet the seriousness of her offense, but rather exulting in the fact that this money would hasten her wedding day. The young man to whom she was engaged, however, listened to her story with horror and despair. He realized the enormity of the girl’s crime and knew that its discovery meant prison for her, a broken heart for him, and ruined lives for them both.”
Dave’s stern features had gradually relaxed to an expression of abject misery. At the vivid scene conjured up by his accuser he sobbed aloud and dropped his face in his hands. But the governor quietly continued:
“The young man’s plight was indeed pitiful, but his poignant sorrow blurred his reason and led him to a subterfuge so cruel and unmanly that his error was scarcely less iniquitous than Hazel’s. To save the girl he loved he endeavored to throw the burden of guilt on an innocent person, a friendless boy and a cripple. He was not the first to accuse Toby Clark, but Toby’s arrest gave him the idea. Forcing Hazel to give to him the entire contents of the rifled box, he selected all the papers that were of no value to anyone but the owner and hid then in the back room of the shanty. Then, to make sure they would be found, he wrote anonymous letters to two parties whom he thought would be interested in the search, telling where the papers were hidden.”
The governor paused a moment.
“I am not sure,” said he, “why you retained the money and bonds, Hunter. You may have had some vague idea of keeping them, at the time; but afterward I am sure you thought better of it, for you gave up the stolen money, again implicating Toby Clark.”
“I—I wanted to give it all up in the beginning,” groaned Dave, in broken, pleading accents; “but I was bewildered, then—I’ve been bewildered ever since, I think—and the thought came to me that if Hazel should be arrested I would need money to defend her. I didn’t much care what I did, if only I could manage to save Hazel. But—after a time—I thought the danger had passed and no one would now connect her with the theft; so I wanted to get rid of the money, which was a horror to me. I thought the best way was to put it in Toby’s house, as I did the papers.”
“I follow your argument,” said the governor. “Had you been more experienced in crime you would have known that the greatest danger of discovery lay in those anonymous letters. Such things are very easily traced. Do you know that Phoebe Daring was able to connect you with this crime by means of those very letters? As a matter of fact, however, they did not lead to the discovery that Hazel Chandler took Mrs. Ritchie’s box. Two different people saw her carry it home; yet I suppose she has imagined she escaped observation.”
“She—she seemed quite sure of that, sir.”