XXIV
ONE SECRET LESS
Suddenly he faced Deborah again. The crisis of feeling had passed, andhe looked almost cold.
"You have had advisers," said he. "Who are they?"
"I have talked with Mr. Black."
The judge's brows met.
"Well, you were wise," said he. Then shortly, "What is his attitude?"
Feeling that her position was fast becoming intolerable she falteringlyreplied, "Friendly to you and Oliver but, even without all the reasonswhich move me, sharing my convictions."
"He has told you so?"
"Not directly; but there was no misjudging his opinion of the necessityyou were under to explain, the mysteries of your life. AND IT WASYESTERDAY WE TALKED; NOT TO-DAY."
Like words thrown into a void, these slow, lingering, half-utteredphrases seemed to awaken an echo which rung not only in his inmostbeing, but in hers. Not till in both natures silence had settled again(the silence of despair, not peace), did he speak. When he did, it wassimply to breathe her name.
"Deborah?"
Startled, for it had always before been Madam, she looked up to find himstanding very near her and with his hand held out.
"I am going through deep waters," said he. "Am I to have your support?"
"O, Judge Ostrander, how can you doubt it?" she cried, dropping her handinto his, and her eyes swimming with tears. "But what can I do? If Iremain here I will be questioned. If I fly--but, possibly, that is whatyou want;--for me to go--to disappear--to take Reuther and sink out ofall men's sight forever. If this is your wish, I am ready to do it.Gladly will we be gone--now--at once--this very night if you say so."
His disclaimer was peremptory.
"No; not that. I ask no such sacrifice. Neither would it avail. There isbut one thing which can reinstate Oliver and myself in the confidenceand regard of these people. Cannot you guess it, madam? I mean your ownrestored conviction that the sentence passed upon John Scoville was ajust one. Once satisfied of this, your temperament is such that youwould be our advocate whether you wished it or no. Your very silencewould be eloquent."
"Convince me; I am willing to have you, Judge Ostrander. But how can youdo so? A shadow stands between my wishes and the belief you mention. Theshadow cast by Oliver as he made his way towards the bridge, with myhusband's bludgeon in his hand."
"Did you see him strike the blow? Were there any opportune shadows tobetray what happened between the instant of--let us say Oliver'sapproach and the fall of my friend? Much can happen in a minute, andthis matter is one of minutes. Granted that the shadow you saw was thatof Oliver, and the stick he carried was the one under which Algernonsuccumbed, what is to hinder the following from, having occurred. Thestick which Oliver may have caught up in an absent frame of mind becomesburdensome; he has broken his knife against a knot in the handle and heis provoked. Flinging the bludgeon down, he hurries up the embankmentand so on into town. John Scoville, lurking in the bushes, sees hisstick fall and regains it at or near the time Algernon Etheridge stepsinto sight at the end of the bridge beyond Dark Hollow. Etheridgecarries a watch greatly desired by the man who finds himself thus armed.The place is quiet; the impulse to possess himself of this watch issudden and irresistible, and the stick falls on Etheridge's head. Isthere anything impossible or even improbable about all this? Scovillehad a heart open to crime, Oliver not. This I knew when I sat upon thebench at his trial; and now you shall know it too. Come! I havesomething to show you."
He turned towards the door and mechanically she followed. Her thoughtswere all in a whirl. She did not know what to make of him or of herself.The rooted dread of weeks was stirring in its soil. This suggestion ofthe transference of the stick from hand to hand was not impossible. OnlyScoville had sworn to her, and that, too, upon their child's head, thathe had not struck this blow. And she had believed him after finding thecap; AND SHE BELIEVED HIM NOW. Yes, against her will, she believed himnow. Why? and again, why?
They had crossed the hall and he was taking the turn to his room.
"Enter," said he, lifting the curtain.
Involuntarily she recoiled. Not from him, but from the revelation shefelt to be awaiting her in this place of unguessed mystery. Looking backinto the space behind her, she caught a fleeting glimpse of Reutherhovering on a distant threshold. Leaving the judge, without even amurmured word of apology, she ran to the child, embraced her, andpromised to join her soon; and then, satisfied with the comfort thusgained, she returned quickly to where the judge still awaited her, withhis hand on the curtain.
"Forgive me," said she; and meeting with no reply, stood trembling whilehe unlocked the door and ushered her in.
A new leaf in the history of this old crime was about to be turned.
* * * * *
Once within the room, he became his courteous self once more. "Beseated," he begged, indicating a chair in the half gloom. As she tookit, the room sprang into sudden light. He had pulled the string whichregulated the curtains over the glazed panes in the ceiling. Then asquickly all was gloom again; he had let the string escape from his hand.
"Half light is better," he muttered in vague apology.
It was a weird beginning to an interview whose object was as yetincomprehensible to her. One minute a blinding glimpse of the room whosedetails were so varied that many of them still remained unknown toher,--the next, everything swept again into shadow through which thetall form of the genius of the place loomed with melancholy suggestion!
She was relieved when he spoke.
"Mrs. Scoville (not Deborah now) have you any confidence in Oliver'sword?"
She did not reply at once. Too much depended upon a simple yes or no.Her first instinctive cry would have been YES, but if Oliver had beenguilty and yet held back his dreadful secret all these years, how couldshe believe his word, when his whole life had been a lie?
"Has there ever been anything in his conversation as you knew it inDetroit to make you hesitate to reply?" the judge persisted, as shecontinued speechless.
"No; nothing. I had every confidence in his assertions. I should haveyet, if it were not for this horror."
"Forget it for a moment. Recall his effect upon you as a man, aprospective son-in-law,--for you meant him to marry Reuther."
"I trusted him. I would trust him in many ways yet."
"Would you trust him enough to believe that he would tell you the truthif you asked him point-blank whether his hands were clean of crime?"
"Yes." The word came in a whisper; but there was no wavering in it. Shehad felt the conviction dart like an arrow through her mind that Olivermight slay a man in his hate,--might even conceal his guilt foryears--but that he could not lie about it when brought face to face withan accuser like herself.
"Then I will let you read something he wrote at my request these manyyears ago: An experience--the tale of one awful night, the horrors ofwhich, locked within his mind and mine, have never been revealed to athird person. That you should share our secret now, is not onlynecessary but fitting. It becomes the widow of John Scoville to knowwhat sort of a man she persists in regarding innocent. Wait here forme."
With a quick step he wound his way among the various encumbering piecesof furniture, to the door opening into his bedroom. A breathless momentensued, during which she heard his key turn in the lock, followed by therepeating sound of his footsteps, as he wended his way inside to a pointshe could only guess at from her knowledge of the room, to be a dresserin one of the corners. Here he lingered so long that, without anyconscious volition of her own,--almost in spite of her volition whichwould have kept her where she was,--she found herself on her feet, thenmoving step by step, more cautiously than he, in and out of huddlingchairs and cluttering tables till she came to a stand-still before thereflection (in some mirror, no doubt) of the judge's tall form, bendingnot over the dresser, as she had supposed, but before a cupboard in thewall--a cupboard she had never seen, in a wall she had never seen, butnow recognise
d for the one hitherto concealed by the great carpet rug.He had a roll of paper in his hand, which he bundled together as hedropped the curtain back into place and then stopped to smooth it outover the floor with the precision of long habit. All this she saw in themirror as though she had been at his back in the other room; but whenshe beheld him turn, then panic seized her and she started breathlesslyfor the spot where he had left her, glad that there was so little light,and praying that he might be deaf to her steps, which, gently as theyfell, sounded portentously loud in her own ears.
She had reached her chair, but she had not had time to re-seat herselfwhen she beheld him approaching with the bundle of loose sheets clutchedin his hand.
"I want you to sit here and read," said he, laying the manuscript downon a small table near the wall under a gas-jet which he immediatelylighted. "I am going back to my own desk. If you want to speak, you may;I shall not be working." And she heard his footsteps retreating again inand out among the furniture till he reached his own chair and sat beforehis own table.
This ended all sound in the room excepting the beating of her own heart,which had become tumultuous.
How could she sit there and read words, with the blood pounding in herveins and her eyes half blind with terror and excitement? It was onlythe necessity of the case which made it possible. She knew that shewould never be released from that spot until she had read what had beenplaced before her. Thank God! the manuscript was legible. Oliver'shandwriting possessed the clearness of print. She had begun to readbefore she knew it, and having begun, she never paused till she reachedthe end.
* * * * *
I was fifteen. It was my birthday and I had my own ideas of how I wantedto spend it. My hobby was modelling. My father had no sympathy with thishobby. To him it was a waste of time better spent in study or suchsports as would fit me for study. But he had never absolutely forbiddenme to exercise my talent this way, and when on the day I mention I had afew hours of freedom, I decided to begin a piece of work of which I hadlong dreamed. This was the remodelling in clay of an exquisite statuewhich had greatly aroused my admiration.
This statue stood in a forbidden place. It was one of the art treasuresof the great house on the bluff commonly called Spencer's Folly. I hadseen this marble once, when dining there with father, and was soimpressed by its beauty, that it haunted me night and day, standing outwhite and wonderful in my imagination, against backgrounds of endlessvariation. To copy its lovely lines, to caress with a creative handthose curves of beauty instinct, as I then felt, with soul, became myone overmastering desire,--a desire which soon deepened into purpose.The boy of fifteen would attempt the impossible. I procured my clay andthen awaited my opportunity. It came, as I have said, on my birthday.
There was no one living in the house at this time. Mr. Spencer had goneWest for the winter. The servants had been dismissed, and the placeclosed. Only that morning I had heard one of his boon companions say,"Oh, Jack's done for. He's found a pretty widow in the Sierras, andthere's no knowing now when we'll drink his health again in Spencer'sFolly:" a statement which wakened but one picture in my mind and thatwas a long stretch of empty rooms teeming with art treasures amid whichone gem rose supreme--the gem which through his reckless carelessness, Inow proposed to make my own, if loving fingers and the responsive claywould allow it.
What to every other person in town would have seemed an insuperableobstacle to this undertaking, was no obstacle to me. _I_ KNEW HOW TO GETIN. One day in my restless wanderings about a place which had somethingof the nature of a shrine to me, I had noticed that one of the windows(a swinging one) overlooking the ravine, moved as the wind took it.Either the lock had given way or it had not been properly fastened. If Icould only bring myself to disregard the narrowness of the ledgeseparating the house from the precipice beneath, I felt that I couldreach this window and sever the vines sufficiently for my body to pressin; and this I did that night, finding, just as I had expected, thatonce a little force was brought to bear upon the sash, it yieldedeasily, offering a free passage to the delights within.
In all this I experienced little fear, but once inside, I began torealise the hazard of my adventure, as hanging at full length from thecasement, I meditated on the drop I must take into what to my dazed eyeslooked like an absolute void. This taxed my courage; but after a momentof sheer fright, I let myself go--I had to--and immediately found myselfstanding upright in a space so narrow I could touch the walls on eitherside. It was a closet I had entered, opening, as I soon discovered, intothe huge dining-hall where I had once sat beside my father at the oneformal meal of my life.
I remembered that room; it had made a great impression upon me, and somelight finding its way through the panes of uncurtained glass whichtopped each of the three windows overlooking the ravine, I soon was ableto find the door leading into the drawing-room.
I had brought a small lantern in the bag slung to my shoulders, but Ihad not hitherto dared to use it on account of the transparency of thepanes I have mentioned; but once in the perfectly dark recesses of theroom beyond, I drew it out, and without the least fear of detectionboldly turned it upon the small alcove where stood the object of myadoration.
It was another instance of the reckless confidence of youth. I was onthe verge of one of the most appalling adventures which could befall aman, and yet no premonition disturbed the ecstasy with which I kneltbefore the glimmering marble and unrolled my bundle of wet clay.
I was not a complete fool. I only meant to attempt a miniature copy, butmy presumption led me to expect it to be like--yes, like--oh, I neverdoubted it!
But when, after a few minutes of rapturous contemplation of theproportions which have been the despair of all lesser adepts than thegreat sculptor who conceived them, I began my work, oh, then I began torealise a little the nature of the task I had undertaken and to askmyself whether if I stayed all night I could finish it to my mind. Itwas during one of these moments of hesitation that I heard the firstgrowl of distant thunder. But it made little impression upon me, and Ireturned to my work with renewed glow,--renewed hope. I felt so securein my shell of darkness, with only the one small beam lighting up mymodel and my own fingers busy with the yielding clay.
But the thunder growled again and my head rose, this time in real alarm.Not because of that far-off struggle of the elements with which I hadnothing to do and hardly sensed, but because of a nearer sound, anindistinguishable yet strangely perturbing sound, suggesting a step--no,it was a voice, or if not a voice, some equally sure token of anapproaching presence on the porch in front. Some one going by on theroad two hundred feet away must have caught the gleam of my lanternthrough some unperceived crack in the parlour shutters. In anotherminute I should hear a shout at the window, or, perhaps, the pounding ofa heavy hand on the front door. I hated the interruption, but otherwiseI was but little disturbed. Whoever it was, he could not by any chancefind his way in. Nevertheless, I discreetly closed the shutter of mylantern and began groping my way back to my own place of exit. I hadreached the dining-room door, when the blood suddenly stopped in myveins. Another sound had reached my ear; an unmistakable one thistime--the rattling of a key in its lock. A man--two men were entering bythe great front door. They came in on a swoop of wind which seemed tocarry everything before it. I heard a loud laugh, coarsened by drink,and the tipsy exclamation of a voice I knew:
"There! shut the door, can't you, before it's blown from its hinges?You'll find everything jolly here. Wine, lights, solitude in which tofinish our game and a roaring good opportunity to sleep afterwards. Noservants, no porters, not a soul to disturb us. This is my house andit's a corker. I might be away for a year and"--here there was thecrackling of a match--"I've only to use my night-key to find everythinga man wants right to my hand."
The answer I failed to catch. I was simply paralysed by terror. Shouldtheir way lay through the drawing-room! My clay, my tools were all lyingthere, and my unfinished model. Mr. Spencer was not an unkind man, buthe
was very drunk, and I had heard that whisky makes a brute of the mostgood-natured. He would trample on my work; perhaps he would destroy mytools and then hunt the house till he found me. I did not know what toexpect; meantime, lights began to flame up; the room where I stood wasno longer a safe refuge, and creeping like a cat, I began to movetowards the closet door. Suddenly I made a dart for it; the two men,trampling heavily on the marble floor of the hall were coming my way. Icould hear their rude talk--rude to me, though one of them calledhimself a gentleman. As the door of the room opened to admit them, Isucceeded in shutting that of the closet into which I had flungmyself,--or almost so. I did not dare to latch it, for they were alreadyin the room and might hear me.
"This is the spot for us," came in Spencer's most jovial tones. "Bigtable, whisky handy, cards right here in my pocket. Wait, till I strikea light!"
But the lightning anticipated him. As he spoke, the walls whichsurrounded me, the walls which surrounded them, leapt into glaring viewand I heard the second voice cry out:
"I don't like that! Let's wait till the storm is over. I can't play withsuch candles as those flaring about us."
"Damn it! you won't know what candles you are playing by when once yousee the pile I've got ready for you. I'm in for a big bout. You have tendollars and I have a thousand. I'll play you for that ten. If, in themeantime, you get my thousand, why, it'll be because you're the betterman."
"I don't like it, I say. There, SEE!"
A flood of white light had engulfed the house. My closet, with itswhitewashed walls flared about me like the mouth of a furnace.
"See, yourself!" came the careless retort, and with the words a gas-jetshot up, then two, then all that the room contained. "How's that? What'sa flash more or less now!"
I heard no answer, only the slap of the cards as they were flung ontothe table; then the clatter of a key as it was turned in some distantlock and the quick question:
"Rum, or whisky. Irish or Scotch?"
"Whisky and Irish."
"Good! but you'll drink it alone."
The bottles were brought forward and they sat down one on each side ofthe dusty mahogany table. The man facing me was Spencer, the other satwith his back my way, but I could now and then catch a glimpse of hisprofile as he started at some flash or lifted his head in terror of thethunder-claps.
"We'll play till the hands point to three," announced Spencer, takingout his watch and laying it down where both could see it. "Do you agreeto that?--Unless I win and your funds go a-begging before the hour."
"I agree." The tone was harsh; it was almost smothered. The man wasstaring at the watch; there was a strange set look to his figure; apausing as of thought--of sinister thought, I should now say; then Inever stopped to characterise it; it was followed too quickly by a loudlaugh and a sudden grab at the cards.
"You'll win! I feel it in my bones," came in encouraging tones from therich man. "If you do"--here the storm lulled and his voice sank to anencouraging whisper--"you can buy the old tavern up the road. It's goingfor a song; and then we'll be neighbours and can play--play--"
Thunder!--a terrific peal. It shook the house; it shook my boyish heart,but it no longer had power to move the two gamesters. The fever of playhad reached its height, and I heard nothing more from their lips, butsuch phrases as belong to the game. Why didn't I take advantage of theirabsorption to fly? The sill above my head was within easy reach, thesash was open and no sound that I could make would reach them in thishurly-burly of storm. Why then, with all this invitation to escape, didI remain crouched in my dark retreat with eyes fixed on the narrow crackbefore me which, under some impulse of movement in the walls about, hadwidened sufficiently for me to see all that I have related? I do notknow, unless I was hypnotised by the glare of expression on those men'sfaces.
I remember that it was my first glimpse of the human countenance underthe sway of wicked and absorbing passions. Hitherto my dreams had allbeen of beauty--of lovely shapes or noble figures cast in heroic mould.Henceforth, these ideal groups must visit my imagination mixed with thebulging eyes of greed and the contortions of hate masking theirhideousness under false smiles or hiding them behind the motions ofriotous jollity. I was horrified, I was sickened, and I was frightenedto the very soul, but the fascination of the spectacle held me; Iwatched the men and I watched the play and soon I forgot the tempestalso, or remembered it only when my small retreat flared into suddenwhiteness, or some gust, heavier than the rest, toppled the bricks fromthe chimneys above us and sent them crashing down upon the rain-soakedroof.
The stranger was winning. I saw the heap of bills beside him grow andgrow while that of his opponent dwindled. I saw the latter smile--smilesoftly at each toss of his losings across the board; but there was nomirth in his smile, nor was there any common satisfaction in the way theother's hand closed over his gains.
"He will have it all," I thought. "The Claymore Tavern will soon changeowners;" and I was holding my breath over the final stake when suddenlythe house gave a lurch, resettled, then lurched again. The tempest hadbecome a hurricane, and with its first swoop a change took place in thestranger's luck.
The bills which had all gone one way began slowly to recross the board,first singly, then in handfuls. They fell within Spencer's grasp, andthe smile with which he hailed their return was not the smile with whichhe had seen them go, but a steady grin such as I had beheld on the facesof sculptured demons. It frightened me, this smile. I could see nothingelse; but, when at another crashing peal I ducked my head, I found onlifting it that my eyes sought instinctively the rigid back of thestranger instead of the open face of Spencer. The passion of the winnerwas nothing to that of the loser; and from this moment on, I saw but theone figure, and thrilled to the one hope--that an opportunity would sooncome for me to see the face of the man whose back told such a tale offury and suspense.
But it remained fixed on Spencer, and the cards. The roof might fall--hewas past heeding. A bill or two only lay now at his elbow, and I couldperceive the further stiffening of his already rigid muscles as he dealtout the cards. Suddenly hard upon a rattling peal which seemed to uniteheaven and earth, I heard shouted out:
"Half-past two! The game stops at three."
"Damn your greedy eyes!" came back in a growl. Then all was still,fearfully still, both in the atmosphere outside and in that within,during which I caught sight of the stranger's hand moving slowly aroundto his back and returning as slowly forward, all under cover of thetable-top and a stack of half-empty bottles.
I was inexperienced. I knew nothing of the habits or the ways of suchmen as these, but the alarm of innocence in the face of untold,unsuspected but intuitively felt evil, seized me at this stealthymovement, and I tried to rise,--tried to shriek,--but could not; forevents rushed upon us quicker than I could speak or move.
"I can buy the Claymore Tavern, can I? Well, I'm going to," rang outinto the air as the speaker leaped to his feet. "Take that, you cheat!And that! And that!" And the shots rang out--one, two, three!
Spencer was dead in his Folly. I had seen him rise, throw up his handsand then fall in a heap among the cards and glasses.
Silence! Not even Heaven spoke.
Then the man who stood there alone turned slightly and I saw his face. Ihave seen it many times since; I have seen it at Claymore Tavern.Distorted up to this moment by a thousand emotions,--all evil ones,--itwas calm now with the realisation of his act, and I could make nomistake as to his identity. Later I will mention his name.
Glancing first at his victim, then at the pistol still smoking in hishand, he put the weapon back in his pocket, and began gathering up themoney for which he had just damned his soul. To get it all, he had tomove an arm of the body sprawling along the board. But he did not appearto mind. When every bill was in his pockets, he reached out his hand forthe watch. Then I saw him smile. He smiled as he shut the case, hesmiled as he plunged it in after the bills. There was gloating in thissmile. He seemed to have got what he wanted more than when he
fingeredthe bills. I was stiff with horror. I was not conscious of noting thesedetails, but I saw them every one. Small things make an impression whenthe mind is numb under the effect of a great blow.
Next moment I woke to a realisation of myself and all the danger of myown position. He was scanning very carefully the room about him. Hiseyes were travelling slowly--very slowly but certainly, in my direction.I saw them pause--concentrate their glances and fix them straight andfull upon mine. Not that he saw me. The crack through which we werepeering each in our several ways was too narrow for that. But the crackitself--that was what he saw and the promise it gave of some roombeyond. I was a creature frozen. But when he suddenly turned awayinstead of plunging towards me with his still smoking pistol, I had theinstinct to make a leap for the window over my head and clutch madly atits narrow sill in a wild attempt at escape.
But the effort ended precipitately. Terror had got me by the hair, andterror made me look back. The crack had widened still further, and whatI now saw through it glued me to the wall and held me there transfixed,with dangling feet and starting eyeballs.
He was coming towards me--a straining, panting figure--half carrying,half dragging, the dead man who flopped aside from his arms.
God! what was I to do now! How meet those cold, indifferent eyes filledonly with thoughts of his own safety and see them flare again withmurderous impulse and that impulse directed towards myself! I couldn'tmeet them; I couldn't stay; but how fly when not a muscle responded. Ihad to stay--hanging from the sill and praying--praying--till my sensesblurred and I knew nothing till on a sudden they cleared again, and Iwoke to the blessed realisation that the door had been pushed against myslender figure, hiding it completely from his sight, and that this doorwas now closed again and this time tightly, and I was safe--safe!
The relief sent the perspiration in a reek from every pore; but the icyrevulsion came quickly. As I drew up my knees to get a better purchaseon the sill, heaven's torch was suddenly lit up, the closet became a pitof dazzling whiteness amid which I saw the blot of that dead body, withhead propped against the wall and eyes--
Remember, I was but fifteen. The legs were hunched up and almost touchedmine. I could feel them--though there was no contact--pushingme--forcing me from my frail support. Would it lighten again? Would Ihave to see--No! any risk first. The window--I no longer thought of it.It was too remote, too difficult. The door--the door--there was myway--the only way which would rid me instantly of any proximity to thishideous object. I flung myself at it--found the knob--turned it andyelled aloud--My foot had brushed against him. I knew the difference andit sent me palpitating over the threshold; but no further. Love of lifehad returned with my escape from that awful prison-house, and I haltedin the semidarkness into which I had plunged, thanking Heaven for thethunder peal which had drowned my loud cry.
For I was not yet safe. He was still there. He had turned out all lightsbut one, but this was sufficient to show me his tall figure straining upto put out this last jet.
Another instant and darkness enveloped the whole place. He had not seenme and was going. I could hear the sound of his feet as he wentstumbling in his zigzag course towards the door. Then every sound bothon his part and on mine was lost in a swoop of down-falling rain and Iremember nothing more till out of the blankness before me, he startedagain into view, within the open doorway where in the glare of what hecalled heaven's candles he stood, poising himself to meet the gale whichseemed ready to catch him up and whirl him with other inconsequentthings into the void of nothingness. Then darkness settled again and Iwas left alone with Murder;--all the innocence of my youth gone, and mysoul a very charnel house.
* * * * *
I had to re-enter that closet; I had to take the only means of escapeproffered. But I went through it as we go through the horrors ofnightmare. My muscles obeyed my volition, but my sensibilities were nolonger active. How I managed to draw myself up to that slippery sill allreeking now with rain, or save myself from falling to my death in thewhirling blast that carried everything about me into the ravine below, Ido not know.
I simply did it and escaped all--lightning-flash and falling limb, andthe lasso of swirling winds--to find myself at last lying my full lengthalong the bridge amid a shock of elements such as nature seldom sportswith. Here I clung, for I was breathless, waiting with head buried in myarm for the rain to abate before I attempted a further escape from theplace which held such horror for me!
But no abatement came, and feeling the bridge shaking under me almost tocracking, I began to crawl, inch by inch, along its gaping boards till Ireached its middle.
There God stopped me.
For, with a clangour as of rending worlds, a bolt, hot from the zenith,sped down upon the bluff behind me, throwing me down again upon my faceand engulfing sense and understanding for one wild moment. Then I sprangupright and with a yell of terror sped across the rocking boards beneathme to the road, no longer battling with my desire to look back; nolonger asking myself when and how that dead man would be found; nolonger even asking my own duty in the case; for Spencer's Folly was onfire and the crime I had just seen perpetrated there would soon be acrime stricken from the sight of men forever.
In the flare of its tremendous burning I found my way up through theforest road to my home and into my father's presence. He like everybodyelse was up that night, and already alarmed at my continued absence.
"Spencer's Folly is on fire," I cried, as he cast dismayed eyes at mypallid and dripping figure. "If you go to the door, you can see it!"
But I told him nothing more.
Perhaps other boys of my age can understand my silence.
I not only did not tell my father, but I told nobody, even after thediscovery of Spencer's charred body in the closet so miraculouslypreserved. With every day that passed, it became harder to part withthis baleful secret. I felt it corroding my thoughts and destroying myspirits, and yet I kept still. Only my taste for modelling was gone. Ihave never touched clay since.
Claymore Tavern did change owners. When I heard that a man by the nameof Scoville had bought it, I went over to see Scoville. He was the man.Then I began to ask myself what I ought to do with my knowledge, and themore I asked myself this question, and the more I brooded over thematter, the less did I feel like taking, not the public, but my father,into my confidence.
I had never doubted his love for me, but I had always stood in great aweof his reproof, and I did not know where I was to find courage to tellhim all the details of this adventure.
There is one thing I did do, however. I made certain inquiries here andthere, and soon satisfied myself as to how Scoville had been able tocome into town, commit this horrid deed and escape without any one butmyself being the wiser. Spencer and he had come from the west en routeto New York without any intention of stopping off in Shelby. But onceinvolved in play, they got so interested that when within a few miles ofthe town, Spencer proposed that they should leave the train and finishthe game in his own house. Whether circumstances aided them, or Spencertook some extraordinary precautions against being recognised, will neverbe known. But certain it is that he escaped all observation at thestation and even upon the road. When Scoville returned alone, the stormhad reached such a height that the roads were deserted, and he, being anentire stranger here at that time, naturally attracted no attention, andso was able to slip away on the next train with just the drawback ofbuying a new ticket. I, a boy of fifteen, trespassing where I did notbelong, was the only living witness of what had happened on this nightof dreadful storm, in the house which was now a ruin.
I realised the unpleasantness of the position in which this put me, butnot its responsibility. Scoville, ignorant that any other breast thanhis own held the secret of that hour of fierce temptation and murder,naturally scented no danger and rejoiced without stint in his newacquisition. What evil might I not draw down upon myself by disturbinghim in it at this late day. If I were going to do anything, I shouldhave done i
t at first--so I reasoned, and let the matter slide. I becameinterested in school and study, and the years passed and I had almostforgotten the occurrence, when suddenly the full remembrance came backupon me with a rush. A man--my father's friend--was found murdered insight of this spot of old-time horror, and Scoville was accused of theact.
I was older now and saw my fault in all its enormity. I was guilty ofthat crime--or so I felt in the first heat of my sorrow and despair. Imay even have said so--in dreams or in some of my self-absorbedbroodings. Though I certainly had not lifted the stick against Mr.Etheridge, I had left the hand free which did, and this was a sufficientoccasion for remorse--or so I truly felt.
I was so affected by the thought that even my father, with his ownweight of troubles, noticed my care-worn face and asked me for anexplanation. But I held him off until the verdict was reached, and thenI told him. I had not liked his looks for some time; they seemed toconvey some doubt of the justice of this man's sentence, and I felt thatif he had such doubts, they might be eased by this certainty ofScoville's murderous tendencies and unquestionable greed.
And they were; but as Scoville was already doomed, we decided that itwas unnecessary to make public his past offences. However, with an eyeupon future contingencies, my father exacted from me in writing thisfull account of my adventure, which with all the solemnity of an oath Ihere declare to be the true story of what befell me in the house calledSpencer's Folly, on the night of awful storm, September Eleventh, 1895.
OLIVER OSTRANDER.
Witnesses to above signature,
ARCHIBALD OSTRANDER,
BELA JEFFERSON.
Shelby........November 7, 1898.