The Four Pools Mystery - Jean Webster (uplifting book club books .TXT) 📗

plodding citizen. It required all his present energy to support his wife and children—I dare say the brief episode of his first marriage had almost faded from his mind. There was not the slightest chance that he could be implicated.

I sifted the papers again, thoroughly and painstakingly, but found nothing that would throw any light upon the mystery. While I was still engaged with this task, a message came from the coroner saying that the formal inquest would begin at ten o'clock the next morning in the Kennisburg court-house. This gave me no chance to plan any sort of campaign, and I could do little more than let matters take their course. I hoped however that in the progress of the inquest, some clue would be brought to light which would render Radnor's being remanded for trial impossible.

So far, I had to acknowledge, the evidence against him appeared overwhelming. A motive was supplied in the fact that the Colonel's death would leave him his own master and a rich man. The well-known fact of their frequent quarrels, coupled with Radnor's fierce temper and somewhat revengeful disposition, was a very strong point in his disfavor; added to this, the suspicious circumstances of the day of the tragedy—the fact that he was not with the rest of the party when the crime must have been committed, the alleged print of his boots and the finding of the match box, his subsequent perturbed condition—everything pointed to him as the author of the crime. It was a most convincing chain of circumstantial evidence.

Considering the data that had come to light, there seemed to be only one alternative, and that was that Cat-Eye Mose had committed the murder. I clung tenaciously to this belief; but I found, in the absence of any further proof or any conceivable motive, that few people shared it with me. The marks of his bare feet proved conclusively that he had been, in whatever capacity, an active participator in the struggle.

"He was there to aid his master," the sheriff affirmed, "and being a witness to the crime, it was necessary to put him out of the way."

"Why hide the body of one and not the other?" I asked.

"To throw suspicion on Mose."

This was the universal opinion; no one, from the beginning, would listen to a word against Mose. In his case, as well as in Radnor's, the past was speaking. Through all his life, they said, he had faithfully loved and served the Colonel, and if necessity required, he would willingly have died for him.

But for myself, I continued to believe in the face of all opposition, that Mose was guilty. It was more a matter of feeling with me than of reasoning. I had always been suspicious of the fellow; a man with eyes like that was capable of anything. The objection which the sheriff raised that Colonel Gaylord was both larger and stronger than Mose and could easily have overcome him, proved nothing to my mind. Mose was a small man, but he was long-armed and wirey, doubtless far stronger than he looked; besides, he had been armed, and the nature of his weapon was clear. The floor of the cave was strewn with scores of broken stalactites; nothing could have made a more formidable weapon than one of these long pieces of jagged stone used as a club.

As to the motive for the crime, who could tell what went on in the slow workings of his mind? The Colonel had struck him more than once—unjustly, I did not doubt—and though he seemed at the moment to take it meekly, might he not have been merely biding his time? His final revenge may have been the outcome of many hoarded grievances that no one knew existed. The fellow was more than half insane. What more likely than that he had attacked his master in a fit of animal passion; and then, terrified at the result, escaped to the woods? That seemed to me the only plausible explanation.

No facts had come out concerning the ha'nt or the robbery, and I do not think that either was connected in the public mind with the murder. But to my mind the death of Colonel Gaylord was but the climax of the long series of events which commenced on the night of my arrival with the slight and ludicrous episode of the stolen roast chicken. I had been convinced at the time that Mose was at the bottom of it, and I was convinced now that he was also at the bottom of the robbery and the murder. How Radnor had got drawn into the muddle of the ha'nt, I could not fathom; but I suspected that Mose had hoodwinked him as he had the rest of us.

Assuming that my theory was right, then Mose was hiding; and all my energies from the beginning had been bent toward his discovery. The low range of mountains which lay between Four-Pools Plantation and the Luray valley was covered thickly with woods and very sparsely settled. Mose knew every foot of the ground; he had wandered over these mountains for days at a time, and must have been familiar with many hiding places. It was in this region that I hoped to find him.

Immediately after the Colonel's death I had offered a large reward either for Mose's capture, or for any information regarding his whereabouts. His description had been telegraphed all up and down the valley and every farmer was on the alert. Bands of men had been formed and the woods scoured for him, but as yet without result. I was hourly expecting, however, that some clue would come to light.

The sheriff, on the other hand, in pursuance of his theory that Mose had been murdered, had been no less indefatigable in his search for the body. The river had been dragged, the cave and surrounding woods searched, but nothing had been found. Mose had simply vanished from the earth and left no trace.

To my disappointment the morning still brought no news; I had hoped to have something definite before the inquest opened. I rode into Kennisburg early in order to hold a conference with Radnor, and get from him the facts in regard to his own and Mose's connection with the ha'nt. My former passivity in the matter struck me now as almost criminal; perhaps had I insisted in probing it to the bottom, my uncle might have been living still. I entered Radnor's cell determined not to leave it until I knew the truth.

But I met with an unexpected obstacle. He refused absolutely to discuss the question.

"Radnor," I cried at last, "are you trying to shield any one? Do you know who killed your father?"

"I know no more about who killed my father than you do."

"Do you know about the ha'nt?"

"Yes," he said desperately, "I do; but it is not connected with either the robbery or the murder and I cannot talk about it."

I argued and pleaded but to no effect. He sat on his cot, his head in his hands staring at the floor, stubbornly refusing to open his lips. I gave over pleading and stormed.

"It's no use, Arnold," he said finally. "I won't tell you anything about the ha'nt; it doesn't enter into the case."

I sat down again and patiently outlined my theory in regard to Mose.

"It is impossible," he declared. "I have known Mose all my life, and I have never yet known him to betray a trust. He loved my father as much as I did, and if my life depended on it, I should swear that he was faithful."

"Rad," I beseeched, "I am not only your attorney, I am your friend; whatever you say to me is as if it had never been said. I must know the truth."

He shook his head.

"I have nothing to say."

"You have got to have something to say," I cried. "You have got to go on the stand and make an absolutely open and straightforward statement of everything bearing on the case. You have got to appear anxious to find and punish the man who murdered your father. You have got to gain public sympathy, and before you go on the stand you owe it to yourself and me to leave nothing unexplained between us."

He raised his eyes miserably to mine.

"Must I go on?" he asked. "Can't I refuse to testify—I don't see that they can punish me for contempt of court; I'm already in prison."

"They can hang you," said I, bluntly.

He buried his face in his hands with a groan.

"Arnold," he pleaded, "don't make me face all those people. You can see what a state my nerves are in; I haven't slept for three nights." He held out his hand to show me how it trembled. "I can't talk—I don't know what I'm saying. You don't know what you're urging me to do."

My anger at his stubbornness vanished in a sudden spasm of pity. The poor fellow was scarcely more than a boy! Though I was completely in the dark as to what he was holding back and why he was doing it, yet I felt instinctively that his motives were honorable.

"Rad," I said, "it would help your cause to be open with me, and if you are remanded for trial before the grand jury you must in the end tell me everything. But now I will not insist. Probably nothing will come up about the ha'nt. I can of course refuse to let you speak on the ground of incriminating evidence, but that is the last stand I wish to take. We must gain public opinion on our side and to that end you must testify yourself. You must force every person present to believe that you are incapable of telling a falsehood—I believe that already and so does Polly Mathers."

Radnor's face flushed and a quick light sprang into his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

I repeated what Polly had said and I added my own interpretation. The effect was electrical. He straightened his shoulders with an air of trying to throw off his despondency.

"I'll do my best," he promised. "Heaven knows I'd like to know the truth as well as you—this doubt is simply hell!"

A knock sounded on the door and a sheriff's officer informed us that the hearing was about to begin.

"You haven't explained your actions on the day of the murder," I said hurriedly. "I must have a reason."

"That's all right—it will come out. If you just keep 'em off the ha'nt, I'll clear everything else."

"If you do that," said I, immeasurably relieved, "there'll be no danger of your being held for trial." I rose and held out my hand. "Courage, my boy; remember that you are going to prove your innocence, not only for your own, but for Polly's sake."

CHAPTER XIII THE INQUEST

The coroner's court was packed; and though here and there I caught a face that I knew to be friendly to Radnor, the crowd was made up for the most part of morbid sensation seekers, eager to hear and believe the worst.

The District Attorney was present; indeed he and the coroner and Jim Mattison were holding a whispered consultation when I entered the room, and I did not doubt but that the three had been working up the case together. The thought was not reassuring; a coroner, with every appearance of fairness, may still bias a jury by the form his questions take. And I myself was scarcely in a position to turn the trend of the inquiry; I doubt if a lawyer ever went to an inquisition with less command of the facts than I had.

The first witness called was the doctor who made the