XIII
A BIT OF STEEL
"When are you going to Judge Ostrander's?"
"To-morrow. This is my last free day. So if there is anything for me todo, do tell me, Mr. Black, and let me get to work at once."
"There is nothing you can do. The matter is hopeless."
"You think so?"
There was misery in the tone, but the seasoned old lawyer, who hadconducted her husband's defence, did not allow his sympathies to runaway with his judgment.
"I certainly do, madam. I told you so the other night, and now, after acouple of days of thought on the subject, I am obliged to repeat myassertion. Your own convictions in the matter, and your story of theshadow and the peaked cap may appeal to the public and assure you somesympathy, but for an entire reversal of its opinion you will needsubstantial and incontrovertible evidence. You must remember--you willpardon my frankness--that your husband's character failed to stand thetest of inquiry. His principles were slack, his temper violent. You havesuffered from both and must know. A poor foundation I found it for hisdefence; and a poor one you will find it for that reversal of publicopinion upon which you count, without very strong proof that the crimefor which he was punished was committed by another man. You think youhave such proof, but it is meagre, very meagre. Find me somethingdefinite to go upon and we will talk."
"Discouragement; discouragement everywhere," she complained. "Yet I knowJohn to have been innocent of this crime."
The lawyer raised his brows, and toyed impatiently with his watch-chain.If her convictions found any echo in his own mind, he gave no evidenceof it. Doubtfully she eyed him.
"What you want," she observed at length, with a sigh, "is the name ofthe man who sauntered down the ravine ahead of my husband. I cannot giveit to you now, but I do not despair of learning it."
"Twelve years ago, madam; twelve years ago."
"I know; but I have too much confidence in my cause to be daunted evenby so serious an obstacle as that. I shall yet put my finger on thisman. But I do not say that it will be immediately. I have got to renewold acquaintances; revive old gossip; possibly, recall to life almostobliterated memories."
Mr. Black, dropping his hand from his vest, gave her his first look ofunqualified admiration.
"You ring true," said he. "I have met men qualified to lead a ForlornHope; but never before a woman. Allow me to express my regret that it issuch a forlorn one." Then, with a twinkle in his eye which bespoke alighter mood, he remarked in a curiously casual tone.
"Talking of gossip, there is but one person in town who is a completerepository of all that is said or known this side of Colchester." (Thenext town.) "I never knew her to forget anything; and I never knew herto be very far from the truth. She lives near Judge Ostrander--a quaintlittle body, not uninteresting to talk to; a regular character, in fact.Do you know what they say about her house? That everything on God'searth can be found in it. That you've but to name an object, and shewill produce it. She's had strange opportunities for collecting odds andends, and she's never neglected one of them. Yet her house is but a box.Miss Weeks is her name."
"I will remember it."
Mrs. Scoville rose. Then she sat down again, with the remark:
"I have a strange notion. It's a hard thing to explain and you may notunderstand me, but I should like to see, if it still exists, thestick--my husband's stick--with which this crime was committed. Do thepolice retain such things? Is there any possibility of my finding itlaid away in some drawer at Headquarters or on some dusty shelf?"
Mr. Black was again astonished. Was this callousness or a very deep anddetermined purpose.
"I don't know. I never go pottering about at Headquarters. What do youwant to see that for? What help can you get out of that?"
"None probably; but in the presence of defeat you grasp at every hope. Idreamt of that stick last night. I was in an awful wilderness, allrocks, terrific gorges and cloud-covered, unassailable peaks. Alight--one ray and one only--shone on me through the darkness. Towardsthis ray I was driven through great gaps in the yawning rocks and alongnarrow galleries sloping above an unfathomable abyss. Hope lay beyond,rescue, light. But a wall reared its black length between. I came uponit suddenly; a barrier mighty and impenetrable with its ends lost inobscurity. And the ray! the one long beam! It was still there. It shonedirectly upon me from an opening in this wall. It marked a gate,--a gatefor which I only lacked the key. Where should I find one to fit a lockso gigantic! Nowhere! unless the something which I held--which had beenin my hands from the first--would be found to move its stubborn wards. Itried it and it did! it did! I hear the squeak of those tremendoushinges now, and--Mr. Black, you must have guessed what that somethingwas. My husband's stick! the bludgeon with whose shape I was so familiartwelve years ago! It is that and that only which will lead us to thelight. Of this I feel quite sure."
A short and ironical grunt answered her. Mr. Black was not always thepink of politeness even in the presence of ladies.
"Most interesting," he commented sarcastically. "The squeak you heardwas probably the protest of the bed you were reclining on against such amisuse of the opportunities it offered you. A dream listened to asevidence in this office! You must have a woman's idea of the value of mytime."
Flushing with discomfiture, she attempted to apologise, when he cut hershort. "Nevertheless, you shall see the stick if it is still to befound. I will take you to Police Headquarters if you will go heavilyveiled. We don't want any recognition of you there YET."
"You will take me--"
"The fact that I never go there may make my visit not unwelcome. I'll doit; yes, I'll do it."
"Mr. Black, you are very good. How soon--"
"Now," he announced, jumping up to get his hat. "A woman who can take upa man's time, with poetry and dreams, might as well have the wholeafternoon. Are you ready? Shall we go?"
All alacrity, in spite of the irony of his bow and smile, he stood atthe door waiting for her to follow him. This she did slowly and withmanifest hesitation. She did not understand the man. People often saidof her that she did not understand her own charm.
There was one little fact of which Mr. Black was ignorant;--that thepolice had had their eye on the veiled lady at Claymore Inn for severaldays now and knew who his companion was the instant they stepped intoHeadquarters. In vain his plausible excuses for showing his lady friendthe curiosities of the place; her interest in the details of criminologywas well understood by Sergeant Doolittle, though of course he had notsounded its full depths, and could not know from any one but JudgeOstrander himself, her grave reasons for steeping her mind again in thehorrors of her husband's long-since expiated crime. And Judge Ostranderwas the last man who would be likely to give him this information.
Therefore, when he saw the small, mocking eye of the lawyer begin toroam over the shelves, and beheld his jaw drop as it sometimes did whenhe sought to veil his purpose in an air of mild preoccupation, he knewwhat the next request would be, as well as if the low sounds which leftMr. Black's lips at intervals had been words instead of inarticulategrunts. He was, therefore, prepared when the question did come.
"Any memorial of the Etheridge case?"
"Nothing but a stick with blood-marks on it. That, I'm afraid, wouldn'tbe a very agreeable sight for a lady's eye."
"She's proof," the lawyer whispered in the officer's ear. "Let's see thestick."
The sergeant considered this a very interesting experience--quite ajolly break in the dull monotony of the day. Hunting up the stick, helaid it in the lawyer's hands, and then turned his eye upon the lady.
She had gone pale, but it took her but an instant to regain herequanimity and hold out her own hand for the weapon.
With what purpose? What did she expect to see in it which others had notseen many times? She did not know, herself. She was simply following animpulse, just as she had felt herself borne on by some irresistibleforce in her dream. And so, the three stood there, the men's facesironic, inquisitive,
wondering at the woman's phlegm if not at hermotive; hers, hidden behind her veil, but bent forward over the weaponin an attitude of devouring interest. Thus for a long, slow minute; thenshe impulsively raised her head and, beckoning the two men nearer, shedirected attention to a splintered portion of the handle and asked themwhat they saw there.
"Nothing; just stick," declared the sergeant. "The marks you are lookingfor are higher up."
"And you, Mr. Black?"
He saw nothing either but stick. But he was little less abrupt in hisanswer.
"Do you mean those roughnesses?" he asked. "That's where the stick waswhittled. You remember that he had been whittling at the stick--"
"Who?"
The word shot from her lips so violently that for a moment both menlooked staggered by it. Then Mr. Black, with unaccustomed forbearance,answered gently enough:
"Why, Scoville, madam; or so the prosecution congratulated itself uponhaving proved to the jury's satisfaction. It did not tally withScoville's story or with common sense I know. You remember,--pardonme,--I mean that any one who read a report of the case, will rememberhow I handled the matter in my speech. But the prejudice in favour ofthe prosecution--I will not say against the defence--was too much forme, and common sense, the defendant's declarations, and my eloquence allwent for nothing."
"Of course they produced the knife?"
"Yes, they produced the knife."
"It was in his pocket?"
"Yes."
"Have they that here?"
"No, we haven't that here."
"But you remember it?"
"Remember it?"
"Was it a new knife, a whole one, I mean, with all its blades sharp andin good order?"
"Yes. I can say that. I handled it several times."
"Then, whose blade left that?" And again she pointed to the same placeon the stick where her finger had fallen before.
"I don't know what you mean." The sergeant looked puzzled. Perhaps, hiseyesight was not very keen.
"Have you a magnifying-glass? There is something embedded in this wood.Try and find out what it is."
The sergeant, with a queer look at Mr. Black, who returned it withinterest, went for a glass, and when he had used it, the stare he gavethe heavily veiled woman drove Mr. Black to reach out his own hand forthe glass.
"Well," he burst forth, after a prolonged scrutiny, "there is somethingthere."
"The point of a knife blade. The extreme point," she emphasised. "Itmight easily escape the observation even of the most critical, withoutsuch aid as is given by this glass."
"No one thought of using a magnifying-glass on this," blurted out thesergeant. "The marks made by the knife were plain enough for all to see,and that was all which seemed important."
Mr. Black said nothing; he was feeling a trifle cheap;--something whichdid not agree with his crusty nature. Not having seen Mrs. Scoville fora half-hour without her veil, her influence over him was on the wane,and he began to regret that he had laid himself open to thishumiliation.
She saw that it would be left for her to wind up the interview and getout of the place without arousing too much attention. With aself-possession which astonished both men, knowing her immense interestin this matter, she laid down the stick, and, with a gentle shrug of hershoulders, remarked in an easy tone:
"Well, it's curious! The inns and outs of a crime, I mean. Such adiscovery ten years after the event (I think you said ten years) is veryinteresting." Then she sighed: "Alas! it's too late to benefit the onewhose life it might have saved. Mr. Black, shall we be going? I havespent a most entertaining quarter of an hour."
Mr. Black glanced from her to the sergeant before he joined her. Then,with one of his sour smiles directed towards the former, he said:
"I wouldn't be talking about this, sergeant. It will do no good, and maysubject us to ridicule."
The sergeant, none too well pleased, nodded slightly. Seeing which, shespoke up:
"I don't know about that, I should think it but proper reparation to thedead to let it be known that his own story of innocence has receivedthis late confirmation."
But the lawyer continued to shake his head, with a very sharp look atthe sergeant. If he could have his way, he would have this matter stopjust where it was.
Alas! he was not to have his way, as he saw, when at parting he essayedto make a final protest against a public as well as premature reopeningof this old case. She did not see her position as he did, and wound upher plea by saying:
"The public must lend their aid, if we are to get the evidence we needto help us. Can we find the man who whittled that stick? Never. But someone else may. I am going to give the men and women of this town achance. I'm too anxious to clear my husband's memory to shrink from anypublicity. You see, I believe that the real culprit will yet be found."
The lawyer dropped argument. When a woman speaks in that tone,persuasion is worse than useless. Besides, she had raised her veil.Strange, what a sensitive countenance will do!