The Breaking Point

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

But, after he had turned out his light and got into bed, he began to feel a certain distaste for his self-appointed task. If Livingstone were Clark, if after years of effort he had pulled himself up by his own boot-straps, had made himself a man out of the reckless boy he had been, a decent and useful citizen, why pull him down? After all, the world hadn't lost much in Lucas; a sleek, not over-intelligent big animal, that had been Howard Lucas.

He decided to sleep over it, and by morning he found himself not only disinclined to the business, but firmly resolved to let it drop. Things were well enough as they were. The woman in the case was making good. Jud was making good. And nothing would restore Howard Lucas to that small theatrical world of his which had waved him good-bye at the station so long ago.

He shaved and dressed, his resolution still holding. He had indeed almost a conscious glow of virtue, for he was making one of those inglorious and unsung sacrifices which ought to bring a man credit in the next world, because they certainly got him nowhere in this. He was quite affable to the colored waiter who served his breakfasts in the bachelor apartment house, and increased his weekly tip to a dollar and a half. Then he sat down and opened the Times-Republican, skimming over it after his habit for his own space, and frowning over a row of exclamation and interrogation points unwittingly set behind the name of the mayor.

On the second page, however, he stopped, coffee cup in air. “Is Judson Clark alive? Wife of former ranch manager makes confession.”

A woman named Margaret Donaldson, it appeared, fatally injured by an automobile near the town of Norada, Wyoming, had made a confession on her deathbed. In it she stated that, afraid to die without shriving her soul, she had sent for the sheriff of Dallas County and had made the following confession:

That following the tragedy at the Clark ranch her husband, John Donaldson, since dead, had immediately following the inquest, where he testified, started out into the mountains in the hope of finding Clark alive, as he knew of a deserted ranger's cabin where Clark sometimes camped when hunting. It was his intention to search for Clark at this cabin and effect his escape. He carried with him food and brandy.

That, owing to the blizzard, he was very nearly frozen; that he was obliged to abandon his horse, shooting it before he did so, and that, close to death himself, he finally reached the cabin and there found Judson Clark, the fugitive, who was very ill.

She further testified that her husband cared for Clark for four days, Clark being delirious at the time, and that on the fifth day he started back on foot for the Clark ranch, having left Clark locked in the cabin, and that on the following night he took three horses, two saddled, and one packed with food and supplies. That accompanied by herself they went back to the cabin in the mountains and that she remained there to care for Clark, while her husband returned to the ranch, to prevent suspicion.

That, a day or so later, looking out of her window, she had perceived a man outside in the snow coming toward the cabin, and that she had thought it one of the searching party. That her first instinct had been to lock him outside, but that she had finally admitted him, and that thereafter he had remained and had helped her to care for the sick man.

Unfortunately for the rest of the narrative it appeared that the injured woman had here lapsed into a coma, and had subsequently died, carrying her further knowledge with her.