The House of the Whispering Pines (14 page)

Suddenly there was a cry, and the crowd about the door leading into the
main hall started back, as wild steps were heard on the stairs and a
young man rushed into the room where the casket stood, and advanced upon
the officiating clergyman and the astonished undertaker with a fierceness
which was not without its suggestion of authority.

"Take it off!" he cried, pointing at the lid which had just been fastened
down. "I have not seen her—I must see her. Take it off!"

It was the brother, awake at last to the significance of the hour!

The clergyman, aghast at the sacrilegious look and tone of the intruder,
stepped back, raising one arm in remonstrance, and instinctively
shielding the casket with the other. But the undertaker saw in the
frenzied eye fixed upon his own, that which warned him to comply with the
request thus harshly and peremptorily uttered. Unscrewing the lid, he
made way for the intruder, who, drawing near, pushed aside the roses
which had fallen on the upturned face, and, laying his hand on the brow,
muttered a few low words to himself. Then he withdrew his hand, and
without glancing to right or left, staggered back to the door amid a hush
as unbroken as that which reigned behind him in that open casket. Another
moment and his white, haggard face and disordered figure would be blotted
from sight by the door-jamb.

The minister recovered his poise and the bearers their breath; the men
stirred in their seats and the women began to cast frightened looks at
each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to whimper,
when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young man had
turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a clench which
in itself was horrible.

"If they let the man go," he called out in loud and threatening tones, "I
will strangle him with these two hands."

The word, and not the shriek which burst irrepressibly from more than one
woman before him, brought him to himself. With a ghastly look on his
bloated features, he scanned for one moment the row of deeply shocked
faces before him, then tottered back out of sight, and fled towards the
staircase. All thought that an end had come to the harrowing scene, and
minister and people faced each other once more; when, loud and sharp from
above, there rang down the shrill cry of delirium, this time in
articulate words which even the children could understand:

"Break it open, I say! break it open, and see if her heart is there!"

It was too awful. Men and women and children leaped to their feet and
dashed away into the streets, uttering smothered cries and wild
ejaculations. In vain the clergyman raised his voice and bade them
respect the dead; the rooms were well-nigh empty before he had finished
his appeal. Only the very old uncle and the least of the children
remained of all who had come there in memory of their departed kinswoman
and friend.

The little one had fled to the old man's arms before he could rise, and
was now held close to his aged and shaking knees, while he strove to
comfort her and explain.

Soon these, too, were gone, and the casket was refastened and carried out
by the shrinking bearers, leaving in those darkened rooms a trail of
desolation which was only broken from time to time by the now faint and
barely heard reiteration of the name of her who had just been borne away!

"Lila! Lila!"

I'll tell you, by the way,
The greatest comfort in the world.
You said
There was a clew to all.
Remember, Sweet,
He said there was a clew!
I hold it.
Come!

A Blot in the 'Scutcheon.

Sweetwater, however affected by this scene, had not lost control of
himself or forgotten the claims of duty. He noted at a glance that, while
the candid looking stranger, whose lead he had been following, was as
much surprised as the rest at the nature of the interruption—which he
had possibly anticipated and for which he was in some measure
prepared—he was, of all present, the most deeply and peculiarly
impressed by it. No element of fear had entered into his emotion; nor had
it been heightened by any superstitious sense. Something deeper and more
important by far had darkened his thoughtful eye and caused that ebb and
flow of colour in a cheek unused, if Sweetwater read the man aright, to
such quick and forcible changes.

Sweetwater took occasion, likewise, while the excitement was at its
height, to mark what effect had been made on the servants by the action
and conduct of young Cumberland. "They know him better than we do," was
his inner comment; "what do they think of his words, and what do they
think of him?"

It was not so easy to determine as the anxious detective might wish.
Only one of them showed a simple emotion, and that one was, without any
possibility of doubt, the cook. She was a Roman Catholic, and was
simply horrified by the sacrilege of which she had been witness. There
was no mistaking her feelings. But those of the other two women were
more complex.

So were those of the men. Zadok specially watched each movement of his
young master with open mistrust; and very nearly started upright, in his
repugnance and dismay, when that intruding hand fell on the peaceful brow
of her over whose fate, to his own surprise, he had been able to shed
tears. Some personal prejudice lay back of this or some secret knowledge
of the man from whose touch even the dead appeared to shrink.

And the women! Might not the same explanation account for that curious
droop of the eye with which the two younger clutched at each other's
hands, to keep from screaming, and interchanged whispered words which
Sweetwater would have given considerable out of his carefully cherished
hoard to have heard.

It was impossible to tell, at present; but he was confident that it would
not be long before he understood these latter, at least. He had great
confidence in his success with women, homely as he was. He was not so
sure of himself with men; and he felt that some difficulties and not a
few pitfalls lay between him and, for instance, the uncommunicative
Zadok. "But I've the whole long evening before me," he added in quiet
consolation to himself. "It will be a pity if I can't work some of them
in that time."

The last thing he had remarked, before Carmel's unearthly cry had sent
the horrified guests in disorder from the house, was the presence of Dr.
Perry in a small room which Sweetwater had supposed empty, until the
astonishing events I have endeavoured to describe brought its occupant to
the door. What the detective then read in the countenance of the family's
best friend, he kept to himself; but his own lost a trace of its former
anxiety, as the official slipped back out of sight and remained so, even
after the funeral cortege had started on its course.

Plans had been made for carrying the servants to the cemetery, and,
despite the universal disturbance consequent upon these events, these
plans were adhered to. Sweetwater watched them all ride away in the last
two carriages.

This gave him the opportunity he wanted. Leaving his corner, he looked up
Hexford, and asked who was left in the house.

"Dr. Perry, Mr. Clifton, the lawyer, Mr. Cumberland, his sick sister, and
the nurse."

"Mr. Cumberland! Didn't he go to the grave?"

"Did you expect him to, after
that
?"

Sweetwater's shoulders rose, and his voice took on a tone of
indifference.

"There's no telling. Where is he now, do you think? Upstairs?"

"Yes. It seems he spends all his time in a little alcove opposite his
sister's door. They won't let him inside, for fear of disturbing the
patient; so he just sits where I've told you, doing nothing but
listening to every sound that comes through the door."

"Is he there now?"

"Yes, and shaking just like a leaf. I walked by him a moment ago and
noticed particularly."

"Where's his room? In sight of the alcove you mention?"

"No; there's a partition or two between. If you go up by the side
staircase, you can slip into it without any one seeing you. Coroner Perry
and Mr. Clifton are in front."

"Is the side door locked?"

"No."

"Lock it. The back door, of course, is."

"Yes, the cook attended to that."

"I want a few minutes all by myself. Help me, Hexford. If Dr. Perry has
given you no orders, take your stand upstairs where you can give me
warning if Mr. Cumberland makes a move to leave his post, or the nurse
her patient."

"I'm ready; but I've been in that room and I've found nothing."

"I don't know that I shall. You say that it is near the head of the
stairs running up from the side door?"

"Just a few feet away."

"I would have sworn to that fact, even if you hadn't told me," muttered
Sweetwater.

Five minutes later, he had slipped from sight; and for some time not even
Hexford knew where he was.

"Dr. Perry, may I have a few words with you?"

The coroner turned quickly. Sweetwater was before him; but not the same
Sweetwater he had interviewed some few hours before in his office. This
was quite a different looking personage. Though nothing could change his
features, the moment had come when their inharmonious lines no longer
obtruded themselves upon the eye; and the anxious, nay, deeply troubled
official whom he addressed, saw nothing but the ardour and quiet
self-confidence they expressed.

"It'll not take long," he added, with a short significant glance in the
direction of Mr. Clifton.

Dr. Perry nodded, excused himself to the lawyer and followed the
detective into the small writing-room which he had occupied during the
funeral. In the decision with which Sweetwater closed the door behind
them there was something which caused the blood to mount to the
coroner's brow.

"You have made some discovery?" said he.

"A very important one," was the quick, emphatic reply. And in a few brief
words the detective related his interview with the master mechanic's wife
on the highroad. Then with an eager, "Now let me show you something," he
led the coroner through the dining-room into the side hall, where he
paused before the staircase.

"Up?" queried the coroner, with an obvious shrinking from what he might
encounter above.

"No," was the whispered reply. "What we want is
here
." And, pushing
open a small door let into the under part of the stairway (if Ranelagh in
his prison cell could have seen and understood this movement!), he
disclosed a closet and in that closet a coat or two, and one derby hat.
He took down the latter and, holding it out to the light, pointed to a
spot on the under side of its brim.

The coroner staggered as he saw it, and glanced helplessly about him. He
had known this family all their lives and the father had been his
dearest friend. But he could say nothing in face of this evidence. The
spot was a flour-mark, in which could almost be discerned the outline of
a woman's thumb.

'S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy
could find it out.

Hamlet
.

"The coat is here, too," whispered Sweetwater, after a moment of
considerate silence. "I had searched the hall-rack for them; I had
searched his closets; and was about owning myself to be on a false trail,
when I spied this little door. We had better lock it, now, had we not,
till you make up your mind what to do with this conclusive bit of
evidence."

"Yes, lock it. I'm not quite myself, Sweetwater. I'm no stranger to
this house, or to the unfortunate young people in it. I wish I had not
been re-elected last year. I shall never survive the strain if—" He
turned away.

Sweetwater carefully returned the hat to its peg, turned the key in the
door, and softly followed his superior back into the dining-room, and
thence to their former retreat.

"I can see that it's likely to be a dreadful business," he ventured to
remark, as the two stood face to face again. "But we've no choice. Facts
are facts, and we've got to make the best of them. You mean me to go on?"

"Go on?"

"Following up the clews which you have yourself given me? I've only
finished with one; there's another—"

"The bottles?"

"Yes, the bottles. I believe that I shall not fail there if you'll give
me a little time. I'm a stranger in town, you remember, and cannot be
expected to move as fast as a local detective."

"Sweetwater, you have but one duty—to follow both clews as far as they
will take you. As for my duty, that is equally plain, to uphold you in
all reasonable efforts and to shrink at nothing which will save the
innocent and bring penalty to the guilty. Only be careful. Remember the
evidence against Ranelagh. You will have to forge an exceedingly strong
chain to hold your own against the facts which have brought this recreant
lover to book. You see—O, I wish that poor girl could get ease!" he
impetuously cried, as "Lila! Lila!" rang again through the house.

"There can never be any ease for her," murmured Sweetwater. "Whatever the
truth, she's bound to suffer if ever she awakens to reality again. Do you
agree with the reporters that she knew why and for what her unhappy
sister left this house that night?"

"If not, why this fever?"

"That's sound."

"
She
—" the coroner was emphatic, "
she
is the only one who is wholly
innocent in this whole business. Consider her at every point. Her life is
invaluable to every one concerned. But she must not be roused to the
fact; not yet. Nor must he be startled either; you know whom I mean.
Quiet does it, Sweetwater. Quiet and a seeming deference to his wishes as
the present head of the house."

"Is the place his? Has Miss Cumberland made a will?"