The House of the Whispering Pines - Anna Katharine Green (ebook reader play store .TXT) 📗

victim, not of malice but of blind chance, or shall I say of Providence? As to this one key having been slipped from the rest and used to open the wine-vault for wine which nobody wanted and nobody drank—this must be classed with the other incongruities which might yet lead to my enlargement.

"You may add this coincidence to the other," I conceded, after I had gone thus far in my own mind. "I swear that I had nothing to do with that key."

Neither could I believe that it had been used or even carried there by Adelaide or Carmel, though I knew that the full ring of keys had been in their hands and that they had entered the building by means of one of them. So assured was I of their innocence in this regard that the idea which afterwards assumed such proportions in all our minds had, at this moment, its first dawning in mine, as well as its first outward expression.

"Some other man than myself was thirsty that night," I firmly declared.
"We are getting on, Charles."

Evidently he did not consider the pace a very fast one, but being a cheerful fellow by nature, he simply expressed his dissatisfaction by an imperceptible shrug.

"Do you know exactly what the club-house's wine-vault contained?" he asked.

"An inventory was given me by the steward the morning we closed. It must be in my rooms."

"Your rooms have been examined. You expected that, didn't you? Probably this inventory has been found. I don't suppose it will help any."

"How should it?"

"Very true; how should it! No thoroughfare there, of course."

"No thoroughfare anywhere to-day," I exclaimed. "To-morrow some loop-hole of escape may suggest itself to me. I should like to sleep on the matter. I—I should like to sleep on it."

He saw that I had something in mind of which I had thus far given him no intimation, and he waited anxiously for me to reconsider my last words before he earnestly remarked:

"A day lost at a time like this is often a day never retrieved. Think well before you bid me leave you, unenlightened as to the direction in which you wish me to work."

But I was not ready, not by any means ready, and he detected this when I next spoke.

"I will see you to-morrow; any time to-morrow; meantime I will give you a commission which you are at liberty to perform yourself or to entrust to some capable detective. The letter, of which a portion remains, was written to Carmel, and she sent me a reply which was handed me on the station platform by a man who was a perfect stranger to me. I have hardly any memory of how the man looked, but it should be an easy task to find him and if you cannot do that, the smallest scrap of the note he gave me, and which unfortunately I tore up and scattered to the winds, would prove my veracity in this one particular and so make it easier for them to believe the rest."

His eye lightened. I presume the prospect of making any practical attempt in my behalf was welcome.

"One thing more," I now added. "My ring was missing from Miss Cumberland's hand when I took away those pillows. I have reason to think—or it is natural for me to think—that she planned to return it to me by some messenger or in some letter. Do you know if such messenger or such letter has been received at my apartments? Have you heard anything about this ring? It was a notable one and not to be confounded with any other. Any one who knew us or who had ever remarked it on her hand would be able to identify it."

"I have heard the ring mentioned," he replied, "I have even heard that the police are interested in finding it; but I have not heard that they have been successful. You encourage me much by assuring me that it was missing from her hand when you first saw her. That ring may prove our most valuable clew."

"Yes, but you must also remember that she may have taken it off before she started for the club-house."

"That is very true."

"You do not know whether they have looked for it at her home?"

"I do not."

"Will you find out, and will you see that I get all my letters?"

"I certainly will, but you must not expect to receive the latter unopened."

"I suppose not."

I said this with more cheerfulness than he evidently expected. My heart had been lightened of one load. The ring had not been discovered on Carmel as I had secretly feared.

"I will take good care of your interests from now on," he remarked, in a tone much more natural than any he had before used. "Be hopeful and show a brave front to the district attorney when he comes to interview you. I hear that he is expected home to-morrow. If you are innocent, you can face him and his whole office with calm assurance." Which showed how little he understood my real position.

There was comfort in this very thought, however, and I quietly remarked that I did not despair.

"And I will not," he emphasised, rising with an assumption of ease which left him as he remained hesitating before me.

It was my moment of advantage, and I improved it by proffering a request which had been more or less in my mind during the whole of this prolonged colloquy.

First thanking him for his disinterestedness, I remarked that he had shown me so much consideration as a lawyer, that I now felt emboldened to ask something from him as my friend.

"You are free," said I; "I am not. Miss Cumberland will be buried before I leave these four walls. I hate to think of her going to her grave without one token from the man to whom she has been only too good and who, whatever outrage he may have planned to her feelings, is not without reverence for her character and a heartfelt repentance for whatever he may have done to grieve her. Charles, a few flowers,—white—no wreath, just a few which can be placed on her breast or in her hand. You need not say whom they are from. It would seem a mockery to any one but her. Lilies, Charles. I shall feel happier to know that they are there. Will you do this for me?"

"I will."

"That is all."

Instinctively he held out his hand. I dropped mine in it; there was a slight pressure, some few more murmured words and he was gone.

I slept that night.

VIII A CHANCE! I TAKE IT

I entreat you then
From one that so imperfectly conjects,
You'd take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble
Out of his scattering and unsure observance:
It were not for your quiet, nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.

Othello

I slept, though a question of no small importance was agitating my mind, demanding instant consideration and a definite answer before I again saw this friend and adviser. I woke to ask if the suggestion which had come to me in our brief conversation about the bottles taken from the wine-vault, was the promising one it had then appeared, or only a fool's trick bound to end in disaster. I weighed the matter in every conceivable way, and ended by trusting to the instinct which impelled me to have resource to the one and only means by which the scent might be diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in the minds of the police, and Carmel, as well as myself, be saved from the pit gaping to receive us.

This was my plan. I would acknowledge to having seen a horse and cutter leave the club-house by the upper gateway, simultaneously with my entrance through the lower one. I would even describe the appearance of the person driving this cutter. No one by the greatest stretch of imagination would be apt to associate this description with Carmel; but it might set the authorities thinking, and if by any good chance a cutter containing a person wearing a derby hat and a coat with an extra high collar should have been seen on this portion of the road, or if, as I earnestly hoped, the snow had left any signs of another horse having been tethered in the clump of trees opposite the one where I had concealed my own, enough of the truth might be furnished to divide public opinion and start fresh inquiry.

That a woman's form had sought concealment under these masculine habiliments would not, could not, strike anybody's mind. Nothing in the crime had suggested a woman's presence, much less a woman's active agency.

On the contrary, all the appearances, save such as I believed known to myself alone, spoke so openly of a man's strength, a man's methods, a man's appetite, and a man's brutal daring that the suspicion which had naturally fallen on myself as the one and only person implicated, would in shifting pass straight to another man, and, if he could not be found, return to me, or be lost in a maze of speculation. This seemed so evident after a long and close study of the situation that I was ready with my confession when Mr. Clifton next came. I had even forestalled it in a short interview forced upon me by the assistant district attorney and Chief Hudson. That it had made an altogether greater impression upon the latter than I had expected, gave me additional courage when I came to discuss this new line of defence with the young lawyer. I was even able to tell him that, to all appearance, my long silence on a point so favourable to my own interests had not militated against me to the extent one would expect from men so alive to the subterfuges and plausible inventions of suspected criminals.

"Chief Hudson believes me, late as my statement is. I saw it in his eye." Thus I went on. "And the assistant district attorney, too. At least, the latter is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, which was more than I expected. What do you suppose has happened? Some new discovery on their part? If so, I ought to know what it is. Believe me, Charles, I ought to know what it is."

"I have heard of no new discovery," he coldly replied, not quite pleased, as I could see, either with my words or my manner. "An old one may have served your purpose. If another cutter besides yours passed through the club-house grounds at the time you mention, it left tracks which all the fury of the storm would not have entirely obliterated in the fifteen minutes elapsing between that time and the arrival of the police. Perhaps they remember these tracks, and if you had been entirely frank that night—"

"I know, I know," I put in, "but I wasn't. Lay it to my confusion of mind—to the great shock I had received, to anything but my own blood-guiltiness, and take up the matter as it now stands. Can't you follow up my suggestion? A witness can certainly be found who encountered that cutter and its occupant somewhere on the long stretch of open road between The Whispering Pines and the resident district."

"Possibly. It would help. You have not asked for news from the Hill."

The trembling which seized and shook me at these words testified to the shock they gave me. "Carmel!" I cried. "She is worse—dead!"

"No. She's not worse and she's not dead. But the doctors say it will be weeks before they can allow a question of any importance to be put to her. You can see what that will do for us. Her testimony is too important to the case to be ignored. A delay will follow which may or may not be favourable to you. I am inclined to think now that it will redound to your interests. You are ready to swear to the sleigh you speak of; that you saw it leave the club-house grounds and turn north?"

"Quite ready; but you must not ask me to describe or in any way to identify its occupant. I saw nothing but the hat and coat I have told you about. It was just before the moon went under a cloud, or I could not have seen that much."

Is it so hard to preserve a natural aspect in telling or suggesting a lie that Charles's look should change as