CHAPTER IX. 58 C. H.--161*
There was considerable excitement when it became known to the crowd, asit speedily did, that Harry Bartlett, almost universally accepted as thefiance of Viola Carwell, had been held as having vital knowledge of herfather's death. Indeed there were not a few wild rumors which insistedthat he had been held on a charge of murder.
"Oh, I can't believe it! I can't believe it!" exclaimed Viola,when they told her. "It can't be possible that they can hold him on sucha charge. It's unfair!"
"Perhaps," gently admitted Dr. Lambert. "The law is not always fair; butit seeks to know the truth."
Viola and her aunt were again in the room where Viola had been revivedfrom her indisposition caused by the shock of Bartlett's testimony.Colonel Ashley, who, truth to tell, had been expecting some suchsummons, went with Dr. Lambert.
"Oh, isn't it terrible, Colonel?" began Viola. "Have they a right to--tolock him up on this charge?"
"It isn't exactly a charge, Viola, my dear, and they have, I am sorry tosay, a right to lock him up. But it will not be in a cell."
"Not in a--a cell?"
"No, as a witness, merely, he has a right to better quarters; and Iunderstand that he will be given them on the order of the prosecutor."
"He'll be in jail, though, won't he?"
"Yes; but in very decent quarters. The witness rooms are not at all likecells, though they have barred windows."
"But why can't he get out on bail?" asked Viola, rather petulantly. "I'msure the charge, absurd as it is, is not such as would make them keephim locked up without being allowed to get bail. I thought only murdercases were not bailable."
"That is usually the case," said Colonel Ashley. "But if this is nota suicide case it is a murder case, and though Harry is not accusedof murder, in law the distinction is so fine that the prosecutor,doubtless, feels justified in refusing bail."
"But we could give it--I could--I have money!" cried Viola. "Aunt Maryhas money, too. You'd go his bail, wouldn't you?" and the girl appealedto her father's sister.
"Well, Viola, I--of course I'd do anything for you in the world. Youknow that, dearie. But if the law feels that Harry must be locked up Iwouldn't like to interfere."
"Oh, Aunt Mary!"
"Besides, he says he did quarrel with your father," went on MissCarwell. "And he won't say what it was about. I don't want to talk aboutany one, Vi, but it does look suspicious for Mr. Bartlett."
"Oh, Aunt Mary! Oh, I'll never forgive you for that!" and poor Violabroke into tears.
They left the courtroom and returned to The Haven. Harry Bartlett sent ahastily written note to Viola, asking her to suspend judgment and trustin him, and then he was taken to the county jail by the sheriff--beingassured that he would be treated with every consideration and lodged inone of the witness rooms.
"Isn't there some process by which we could free him?" asked Viola."Seems to me I've heard of some process--a habeas corpus writ, orsomething like that."
"Often persons, who can not be gotten out of the custody of the law inany other way, may be temporarily freed by habeas corpus proceedings,"said Colonel Ashley. "In brief that means an order from the court,calling on the sheriff, or whoever has the custody of a prisoner, toproduce his body in court. Of course a live body is understood in suchcases.
"But such an expedient is only temporary. Its use is resorted to inorder to bring out certain testimony that might be the means of freeingthe accused. In this case, if Harry persisted in his refusal not totell about the quarrel, the judge would have no other course open but toreturn him to jail. So I can't see that a habeas corpus would be of anyservice."
"In that case, no," sighed Viola. "But, oh, Colonel Ashley, I am suresomething can be done. You must solve this mystery!"
"I am going to try, my dear Viola. I'll try both for your sake and thatof the memory of your father. I loved him very much."
The day passed, and night settled down on the house of death. ThroughoutLakeside and Loch Harbor, as well as the neighboring seaside places,talk of the death of Mr. Carwell under suspicious circumstancesmultiplied with the evening editions of many newspapers.
Colonel Ashley in his pleasant room at The Haven--more pleasant it wouldhave been except for the dark chamber with its silent occupant--wasputting his fishing rod together. There came a knock on the door, andShag entered.
"Oh!" he exclaimed at the sight of the familiar equipment. "Is we--isyo' done on dish yeah case, Colonel?"
"No, Shag. I haven't even begun yet."
"But--"
"Yes, I know. I've just heard that there's pretty good fishing at oneend of the golf course that's so intimately mixed up in this mystery,and I don't see why I shouldn't keep my hand in. Come here, you blackrascal, and see if you can make this joint fit any better. Seems to methe ferrule is loose."
"Yes, sah, Colonel, I'll 'tend to it immejite. I--er I done brungin--you ain't no 'jections to lookin' at papers now, has you?" he askedhesitatingly. For when he went fishing the mere sight of a newspapersometimes set Shag's master wild.
"No," was the answer. "In fact I was going to send you out for thelatest editions, Shag."
"I'se done got 'em," was the chuckling answer, and Shag pulled out fromunder his coat a bundle of papers that he had been hiding until he sawthat it was safe to display them.
And while Shag was occupied with the rod, the colonel read the papers,which contained little he did not already know.
The next day he went fishing.
It was on his return from a successful day of sport, which was addedto by some quiet and intensive thinking, that Viola spoke to him in thelibrary. The colonel laid aside a paper he had been reading, and lookedup.
In lieu of other news one of the reporters had written an interviewwith Dr. Baird, in which that physician discoursed learnedly on variouspoisons and the tests for them, such as might be made to determine whatcaused the death of Mr. Carwell. The young doctor went very much intodetails, even so far as giving the various chemical symbols of poison,dwelling long on arsenious acid, whose symbol, he told the reporter, wasAs2O5, while if one desired to test the organs for traces of strychnine,it would be necessary to use "sodium and potassium hydroxide, ammoniaand alkaline carbonate, to precipitate the free base strychnine fromaqueous solutions of its salts as a white, crystalline solid," whilethis imposing formula was given:
"C21H22 + NaOH C21H22 + H20 + NaNO3."
And so on for a column and a half.
"Oh, Colonel! Have you found out anything yet?" the girl besought.
"Nothing of importance, I am sorry to say."
"But you are working on it?"
"Oh, yes. Have you anything to tell me?"
"No; except that I am perfectly miserable. It is all so terrible. And wecan't even put poor father's body in the grave, where he might rest."
"No, the coroner is waiting for permission from the prosecutor. It seemsthey are trying to find some one who knows about the quarrel betweenHarry and your father."
"I don't believe there was a quarrel--at least not a serious one. Harryisn't that kind. I'm sure he is not guilty. Harry Bartlett had nothingto do with his death. If my father was not a suicide--"
"But if he was not a suicide, for the sake of justice and to prove HarryBartlett innocent, we must find out who did kill your father," said thecolonel.
"You don't believe Harry did it, do you?" Viola asked appealingly.
Colonel Ashley did not answer for a moment. Then he said slowly:
"My dear Viola, if some one were ill of a desperate disease, in whichthe crisis had not yet been passed, you would not expect a physician tosay for certainty that such a person was to recover, would you?"
"No."
"Well, I am in much the same predicament. I am a sort of physician inthis mystery case. It has only begun. The crisis is still far off, andnothing can be said with certainty. I prefer not to express an opinion."
"I'm not afraid!" cried Viola. "I know Harry Bartlett is not guilty
!"
"If he is not--who then?" asked the colonel.
"Oh, I don't know! I don't know what to think! I suspect--No, I mustn'tsay that--Oh, I'm almost distracted!" And, with sobs shaking her frame,Viola Carwell rushed from the room.
Colonel Ashley looked after her for a moment, as though half of a mindto follow, and then, slowly shaking his head, he again picked up thepaper he had been reading, delving through a maze of technicalpoisoning detection formulae, from Vortmann's nitroprusside test to aconsideration of the best method of estimating the toxicity of chemicalcompounds by blood hemolysis. The reporter and young Dr. Baird certainlyleft little to the imagination.
Colonel Ashley read until rather late that evening, and his reading wasnot altogether from Izaak Walton's "Compleat Angler." He delved intoseveral books, and again read, very carefully, the article on the effectsof various poisons as it appeared in the paper he had been glancing overwhen Viola talked with him.
As the colonel was getting ready to retire a servant brought him a note.It was damp, as though it had been splashed with water, and when thedetective had read it and had noted Viola's signature, he knew that hertears had blurred the writing.
"Please excuse my impulsiveness," she penned. "I am distracted. I knowHarry is not guilty. Please do something!"
"I am trying to," mused the colonel as he got into bed, and turned histhoughts to a passage he had read in Walton just before switching offhis light. It was an old rhyme, the source of which was not given, butwhich seemed wonderfully comforting under the circumstances. It wasa bit of advice given by our friend Izaak, and as part of what a goodfisherman should provide specified:
"My rod and my line, my float and my lead, My hook and my plummet, my whetstone and knife. My basket, my baits, both living and dead, My net and my meat (for that is the chief): Then I must have thread, and hairs green and small, With mine angling purse--and so you have all."
"And," reflected Colonel Ashley, as he dozed off, "I guess I'll need allthat and more to solve this mystery."
The detective was up betimes the next morning, as he would have saidhad he been discoursing in the talk of Mr. Walton, and on going to thewindow to fill his lungs with fresh air, he saw a letter slipped underhis door.
"From Viola, I imagine," he mused, as he picked it up. "Unless it's fromShag, telling me the fish are biting unusually well. I hope they're not,for I must do considerable to-day, and I don't want to be tempted tostray to the fields.
"It isn't from Shag, though. He never could muster as neat a pen asthis. Nor yet is it from Viola. Printed, too! The old device to preventdetection of the handwriting. Well, mysterious missive, what have you tosay this fine morning?"
He opened the envelope carefully, preserving it and not tearing theaddress, which, as he had said, was printed, not written. It bore hisname, and nothing else.
Within the envelope was a small piece of paper on which was printedthis:
"Ask Miss Viola what this means. 58 C. H.--161*."
Colonel Ashley read the message through three times without saying aword. Then he held the paper and envelope up to the light to see if theybore a water mark. Neither did, and the paper was of a cheap, commonvariety which might be come upon in almost any stationery store. Thecolonel read the message again, looked at the back and front of theenvelope, and then, placing both in his pocket, went down to breakfast,the bell for which he heard just as he finished his simple breathingexercises.
The morning papers were at his place, which was the only one at thetable. Either Viola and her aunt had already breakfasted, or would do solater. The colonel ate and read.
There was not much new in the papers. Harry Bartlett was still held as awitness, and the prosecutor's detectives were still working on the case.As yet no one had connected Colonel Ashley officially with the matter.The reporters seemed to have missed noting that a celebrated--not tosay successful--detective was the guest of Viola Carwell. It was an hourafter the morning meal, and the colonel was in the library, rather idlyglancing over the titles of the books, which included a goodly number onyachting and golfing, when Viola entered.
"Oh, I didn't know you were here!" she exclaimed, drawing back.
"Oh, come in! Come in!" invited the colonel. "I am just going out. I waswondering if there happened to be a book on chemistry here--or one onpoisons."
"Poisons!" exclaimed the girl, half drawing back.
"Yes. I have one, but I left it in New York. If there happened to beone--Or perhaps you can tell me. Did you ever study chemistry?"
"As a girl in school, yes. But I'm afraid I've forgotten all I everknew."
"My case, too," said the colonel with a laugh. "Then there isn't a bookgiving the different symbols of chemicals?"
"Not that I know of," Viola answered. "Still I might help you out ifit wasn't too complicated. I remember that water is H two O and thatsulphuric acid is H two S O four. But that's about all."
"Would you know what fifty-eight C H one sixty-one, with a period afterthe C, a dash after the H and a star after the last number was?" thecolonel asked casually.
Viola shook her head.
"I'm afraid I wouldn't," she answered. "That is too complicated for me.Isn't it a shame we learn so much that we forget?'
"Still it may have its uses," said the colonel. "I'll have to get a bookon chemistry, I think."
He turned to go out.
"Have you learned anything more?" Viola asked timidly.
"Nothing to speak about," was the answer.
"Oh, I wish you would find out something--and soon," she murmured. "Thissuspense is terrible!" and she shuddered as the detective went out.
It was late that afternoon when Colonel Ashley, having seen Miss MaryCarwell and Viola walking at the far end of the garden, went softly upthe stairs to the room of the girl who had summoned him to The Haven.With a skill of which he was master he looked quickly but carefullythrough Viola's desk, which was littered with many letters and telegramsof condolence that had been answered.
Colonel Ashley worked quickly and silently, and he was about to give up,a look of disappointment on his face, when he found a slip of paper inone of the pigeon holes. And the slip bore this, written in pencil:
58 C. H.--161*