CHAPTER XXIII
The Story
It was not until I unfolded my _Record_ at the breakfast table, nextmorning, that I fully appreciated Godfrey's tremendous activity. I hadalways known, of course, that he was energetic, indefatigable, andfertile of expedient, but his results, remarkable as they often were,were usually achieved with such apparent ease that I had never suspectedthe extent of the downright hard work which lay back of them. Now, as Ilooked over the paper before me, I understood and wondered.
I had left him at ten o'clock the night before, with the mystery stillunsolved and seemingly unsolvable, for the only clue in his possessionhad led him to a blank wall. Yet here before me was the story. An entirepage was devoted to it--and an astonishing story it was, written withverve and vividness, complete in every detail, and illustrated withphotographs and sketches of all the scenes and characters. There was theKingdon cottage, the grave in the cellar, the Kingdon sisters, themurdered man, the pearl-handled revolver--even the coroner and the chiefof police. Many of the photographs had, of course, been collected theday before, and some of them, no doubt, had been used in the afternoonedition, but here they were welded into a homogeneous whole, completeand satisfying. I could fancy the city editors of the other morningpapers turning green with envy as they read it.
And looking at the story, I understood, more clearly than I had everdone, the wide appeal of the yellow press--it paid for the best talentin the market; it handled its matter in a way to attract attention; ittold its stories in a style incisive and easily comprehensible, andadded the visual appeal of pictures, which gave the supreme touch ofreality. _And_ it got the news. Abstractly, I am anything but an admirerof the yellow press; concretely, I have often found that to get the lastdetail of any event--more especially of any event with a sensational ormysterious side--I must have recourse to its columns, just as I hadrecourse to them now.
As I read on, I marvelled more and more at the system which renderedpossible the securing of all these details in so short atime--subterranean, Godfrey had called it; superhuman, I would havesaid, and I determined that he should some day introduce me to it. Hehad run down Parello, unmasked him, laid him bare in all his treacheryand vileness; the whole sordid, terrible story lay revealed--and as Ithought of Harriet Kingdon's sufferings and abasement, I did not wonderthat she had shot down the brute who was trying to drag her back tothem. Some of the details, I knew, Godfrey must have filled in forhimself, since there could be no way of verifying them at this late day;but they fitted so closely with the rest of the structure that therecould be no doubt of their essential truthfulness.
Such, for instance, was the detail of their meeting. Parello had been ateacher of music, and Godfrey shrewdly guessed that he must have metHarriet Kingdon and become acquainted with her at the house where shewas employed as governess. The rest of the story could be easily builtup. He was a handsome and magnetic fellow, she a passionate andattractive woman. He had struck a chord in her which she could not butobey. He had seemed then to have a future before him; the brave exteriorgave no hint of the rottenness within. He had that grandiloquent way ofspeaking of the future which is characteristic of the Latin races--thatsublime faith in himself which needed no justification. He had impressedhimself upon her as a genius who would one day astonish the world; andif he had certain assertive peculiarities which jarred disagreeably attimes, why, was not all genius so? She began by admiring him; she endedby yielding to him. No doubt she fancied that she was hitching her wagonto a star.
Whether there had been a marriage was not certain; Godfrey believedthere had been. At any rate, Parello had introduced her to his friendsas his wife, and, for a time, all went well. Then the devil in the mancropped out. He was naturally indolent. He quit teaching under thepretext that he wished to compose a masterpiece, and forced her tosupport him. No doubt she even yet believed in him; but he dragged herdown to depths unspeakable, trampling her into the very mire of theItalian colony.
At last, he brought his real wife from Italy to live with him. Thisswarthy vixen had added new torments to the unfortunate girl's position,had devised new insults for her, and the end had been Bloomingdale. Upto the very last, such was the nature of the woman, she had continued tolove the man, contented to be his dog, his slave, for the privilege ofbeing near him. Doubtless all this time her mind was weakening, and sheclung to him out of old habit. But with the sudden accession of madness,hate had blazed up in her, white-hot, and she had attempted to stab him.He had called the police, and she had been dragged away, cursing,shrieking, a spectacle to shake the strongest nerves. It was in thatstruggle that he had lost the end of his little finger. She had seizedit between her teeth and bitten it clean through. From a woman she hadchanged into a monster.
But insanity of this type usually yields to treatment; and thoughHarriet Kingdon's case proved to be of unusual obstinacy, patience andcareful nursing triumphed in the end, and reason was restored to her.Restored, that is, as life is restored to a man stricken with heartdisease; resting not on the firm foundation of assured health, but on adelicate balance which any shock may disturb.
Not until she was ready to leave the asylum, did her sister know herwhereabouts; I doubt if she ever knew the whole story of the sufferingswhich went before. She had come for her, had taken her back toElizabeth, to the home which Mrs. Lawrence's kindness and generosity hadprovided.
The Parellos had remained with the Italian colony, sinking lower andlower. Parello, driven by his wife, the target of her abuse now that sheno longer had any other, endeavoured to resume his teaching, but he hadso coarsened in habits and appearance that the old doors were shut tohim. Still, he managed to scrape along, always on the verge of want.Then, in a fortunate hour, his wife had been run down and killed by atrolley car, he managed to exact damages for her death, and for themoment found himself in affluence.
It was at this time that his thoughts turned to Harriet Kingdon. Why? Itis impossible to say. Perhaps he felt some revival of his old passionfor her; perhaps he may even have had some twinges of remorse; moreprobably he realised that he was growing old; he wanted some one to waiton him and slave for him, some one upon whom he could wreak his gusts ofpassion. He had always believed himself irresistible to women; he knewthe dog-like devotion which Harriet Kingdon had had for him; he believedthat he had only to speak the word, and she would crawl back to him. Buthe would do more than that; he would be generous; he would offer to makeher really his wife. Magnificent! Could she refuse such an offer asthat? The wife of Parello!
So he had made inquiries at the asylum, had learned her address, and hadtaken the train for Elizabeth on the morning of that fatal tenth ofJune. He had made his way to the Kingdon cottage, had found HarrietKingdon there alone, had entered, seated himself familiarly, perhapsattempted some endearment. He was confident, self-satisfied. It wasbetter than he had hoped. Here was a comfortable home ready for him; awife who seemed to be making a good living. If it should be necessary,he could no doubt find many pupils at Elizabeth, and if the pay was notquite metropolitan, why, neither was the work. Here was a golden future;yes, he would be generous; she should be his wife; he would forget allthat had happened....
But the sight of him had brought back the memory of her old infamy,which her attack of madness and the years had partially blotted out; thecloud rolled down upon her brain again, that white hate leaped to life.She snatched up her revolver and shot him through the heart, even as hesat there confidently smiling. Then, with a strength born of insanity,she had dragged him to the cellar and dug a grave for him there.
The story was strong in every link; there could be no doubting it.
* * * * *
Not until the inquest was finished, and we entered the train together toreturn to New York, did I get the chance to talk quietly with Godfrey.
"You did great work," I said, as we sat down together.
"Yes," he agreed, smiling, "I was pleased with it myself. The storydeveloped beautifully."<
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"And clearly. Even the coroner's jury couldn't question it. There's nopossibility, now, of any one associating this affair with MissLawrence's disappearance. If it had to happen, I'm glad that it happenedjust when it did--it's served to make the public forget the othermystery. I'm pleased for another reason," I added. "Lucy Kingdon won'tbe called upon to tell that story on the stand. I don't like her nortrust her, but I'm glad she'll be spared that ordeal."
"It would have been a trying one," Godfrey agreed. "The coroner tells methat she's very ill. I feel guilty, in a way. I should have prepared herfor that horror in the cellar. I shouldn't have taken her withoutwarning to the brink of that grave."
"That wasn't the only cause of her illness," I said. "She had sins ofher own on her conscience. I don't understand even yet," I added, "whythat face should affect her so. She couldn't have recognised it, sinceshe'd never seen Parello."
"How do you know she never saw him? I'm decidedly inclined to think shehad--that he was the cause of that violent quarrel between her and hersister which Dr. Schuyler mentioned. Lucy Kingdon, looking at the manclear-eyed, saw him as he was and tried to dissuade her sister from theentanglement; the elder woman, blinded by passion, wouldn't listen, andthe quarrel followed, in which both, no doubt, used words which theyafterwards regretted."
"Yes," I agreed, "perhaps you're right."
"Even if she'd never seen him," Godfrey added, "she must have suspectedwho it was--there was only one man in the world whom her sister wascapable of killing. Or she might have imagined that it was some oneelse. There's been nothing in all this, Lester, to disprove my originaltheory about Miss Lawrence."
"Godfrey," I said impulsively, "I'm going to disprove it once and forall. Look at this," and I thrust into his hands the photograph BurrCurtiss had entrusted to me.
He gazed at it for some moments in silence. At last he handed it back tome.
"Do you believe that theory now?" I asked.
"No," he answered, and sat staring straight before him, his lipscompressed.
"I knew you'd say so," I said. "I knew you'd see how impossible it wasthat there should be any shameful secret in her life. I wavered once ortwice when every discovery we made seemed to confirm your theory, but Inever really believed it. I'd only to recall this photograph----"
"Why didn't you show it to me before?" he asked.
"Candidly, Godfrey," I answered, crimsoning a little, "I--I don't know."
"Oh, yes, you do!" he retorted. "You were afraid I'd chin it out ofyou."
"Well, yes, I was," I admitted.
He looked at me curiously for a moment.
"I see you don't know me very well, even yet, Lester," he said, at last."I'm sorry you didn't let me see it. It would have saved me a wild-goosechase. But then," he added, with a grim little laugh, "I might not havestumbled upon this second tragedy. So perhaps it was as well, after all.I forgive you."
"You think the photograph would have made the mystery clearer?" I asked.
"Clearer?" he echoed. "My dear Lester, it makes it more unexplainablethan ever. It converts it from a vulgar intrigue into the most puzzlingproblem I ever had to deal with!"
I was staring at him in astonishment.
"I don't see how it can do that!" I protested.
"Don't you? Well, I'll tell you. I've already pointed out to you that,so far as I could see, my theory was the only conceivable one whichwould explain Marcia Lawrence's flight. I look at that photograph andsee at once that I must throw that theory aside. What have I left?Nothing! That photograph shows me a pure, cultured, innocent woman; Iknow that she loved devotedly the man she was to marry. Yet shedeliberately deserts him. I should say it was incredible, if I didn'tknow it was true!"
"Then," I said, "while we've solved one mystery, the other is as deep asever."
"Deeper!" he corrected. "Miles deeper. In fact, it hasn't any bottom atall, that I can see," and he sank back into his seat again, a deep linebetween his eyebrows.