"Haven't you some other key about the house that will fit the lock?" asked the Squire.
"Yes. Mine does, I guess. But I didn't think of it at first. I'll try it."
It fitted: the bolt was thrown back, and the door pushed open. The sunshine darted in and fell, broad and clear, upon a still and ghastly thing that laid in the middle of the floor—the corpse of an old man, surrounded by a pool of blood.
Peter gave a wild cry of horror, and fell back senseless into the arms of Lem Pawlett, who was close behind him. They laid him on the old hair-cloth sofa in the sitting-room, called Betsy to attend to him, and then passed into the chamber he had opened.
Murder had been done. Jacob Van Deust's skull had been beaten in by some heavy instrument. One terrible crushing blow had mashed in his left temple, and let out his little weak old life; but, as if for very lust of killing the assassin had struck again and again, and the skull was fractured in several places. The old man, it appeared, had risen from his bed to meet his murderer, and had been struck down before he could utter a cry of alarm. The window curtains were down, so that the room was as yet only lighted from the door; but when those in front were opened, and a flood of sunlight poured in, there were no evidences apparent that there had been any struggle between the slayer and his victim, nor were there at once visible any indications that robbery, the only cause readily conceivable for the brutal murder of such an inoffensive old man, had been the purpose instigating the crime. The contents of the bureau drawers were much tumbled and disordered, but it was presumable that they were so usually, through the careless habits of the occupant of the apartment. There were no marks of blood upon anything they contained, but it was evident that the murderer had made some attempt at least to wipe his crimsoned hands upon the old man's shirt after killing him, and that was probably before he searched the bureau, if indeed he had troubled himself to ransack it at all. On one pillow of the bed they found the mark of a bloody hand. Perhaps the assassin was in such haste for plunder that he groped where the old man's head had lain before thinking of his bloody hand. Beyond that nothing appeared to them to show that robbery had been done.
But when Peter Van Deust had sufficiently recovered to be able to speak coherently, he said that his brother habitually kept, somewhere in his room, a wallet containing something over three thousand dollars, and a bag of coin; how much he did not know. These were nowhere to be found.
Lem Pawlett was hastily dispatched by the Squire, soon after the discovery of the crime, to summon some near neighbors; and as he drove rapidly along the road, shouting to every person he saw—"Jacob Van Deust has been murdered!"—it was but a very little while before a dozen or more men were assembled at the scene of the crime. They were all innocent, simple-minded folks, who had never seen a murdered man before, had even been a little skeptical that such an awful thing as murder was ever really done, except in the big cities where extreme wickedness was naturally to be expected, and were actually stunned by the shock of finding themselves in the presence of the evidences of the perpetration of such a deed. From them, of course, no aid in finding a clue to the perpetrator of the crime, or divining its real motive, could have been expected. Yet every man of them was wise in his own conceit, and among them were furtively exchanged whispers of such hideous significance that the Squire, when they reached his ears, felt himself compelled to take notice of and reply to them.
"The old men have been all the time quarrelling for two months past," said one to another.
"Yes," replied he who was addressed. "I've heard 'em myself, cussing each other over the fortune that was left them."
"Sam Folsom," added a third, "told me that he'd heard that Peter had threatened to knock Jake's head off more than once."