The House of the Whispering Pines (9 page)

"Coroner Perry speaks of a third and unused glass which was found with
the flask," I ventured, tentatively. "He seemed to consider it an
important item, hiding some truth that would materially help this case.
What do you think, or rather, what is the general opinion on this point?"

"I have not heard. I have seen the fact mentioned, but without comment.
It is a curious circumstance. I will make a note of it. You have no
suggestions to offer on the subject?"

"None."

"The clew is a small one," he smiled.

"So is the one offered by the array of bottles found on the kitchen
table; yet the latter may lead directly to the truth. Adelaide never dug
those out of the cellar where they were locked up, and I'm sure I did
not. Yet I suppose I'm given credit for doing so."

"Naturally. The key to the wine-vault was the only key which was lacking
from the bunch left at Miss Cumberland's. That it was used to open the
wine-vault door is evident from the fact that it was found in the lock."

This was discouraging. Everything was against me. If the whole affair had
been planned with an intent to inculpate me and me only, it could not
have been done with more attention to detail, nor could I have found
myself more completely enmeshed. Yet I knew, both from circumstances and
my own instinct that no such planning had occurred. I was a victim, not
of malice but of blind chance, or shall I say of Providence? As to this
one key having been slipped from the rest and used to open the wine-vault
for wine which nobody wanted and nobody drank—this must be classed with
the other incongruities which might yet lead to my enlargement.

"You may add this coincidence to the other," I conceded, after I had
gone thus far in my own mind. "I swear that I had nothing to do with
that key."

Neither could I believe that it had been used or even carried there by
Adelaide or Carmel, though I knew that the full ring of keys had been in
their hands and that they had entered the building by means of one of
them. So assured was I of their innocence in this regard that the idea
which afterwards assumed such proportions in all our minds had, at this
moment, its first dawning in mine, as well as its first outward
expression.

"Some other man than myself was thirsty that night," I firmly declared.
"We are getting on, Charles."

Evidently he did not consider the pace a very fast one, but being a
cheerful fellow by nature, he simply expressed his dissatisfaction by an
imperceptible shrug.

"Do you know exactly what the club-house's wine-vault contained?" he
asked.

"An inventory was given me by the steward the morning we closed. It must
be in my rooms."

"Your rooms have been examined. You expected that, didn't you? Probably
this inventory has been found. I don't suppose it will help any."

"How should it?"

"Very true; how should it! No thoroughfare there, of course."

"No thoroughfare anywhere to-day," I exclaimed. "To-morrow some loop-hole
of escape may suggest itself to me. I should like to sleep on the matter.
I—I should like to sleep on it."

He saw that I had something in mind of which I had thus far given him no
intimation, and he waited anxiously for me to reconsider my last words
before he earnestly remarked:

"A day lost at a time like this is often a day never retrieved. Think
well before you bid me leave you, unenlightened as to the direction in
which you wish me to work."

But I was not ready, not by any means ready, and he detected this when I
next spoke.

"I will see you to-morrow; any time to-morrow; meantime I will give you a
commission which you are at liberty to perform yourself or to entrust to
some capable detective. The letter, of which a portion remains,
was
written to Carmel, and she sent me a reply which was handed me on the
station platform by a man who was a perfect stranger to me. I have
hardly any memory of how the man looked, but it should be an easy task to
find him and if you cannot do that, the smallest scrap of the note he
gave me, and which unfortunately I tore up and scattered to the winds,
would prove my veracity in this one particular and so make it easier for
them to believe the rest."

His eye lightened. I presume the prospect of making any practical attempt
in my behalf was welcome.

"One thing more," I now added. "My ring was missing from Miss
Cumberland's hand when I took away those pillows. I have reason to
think—or it is natural for me to think—that she planned to return it to
me by some messenger or in some letter. Do you know if such messenger or
such letter has been received at my apartments? Have you heard anything
about this ring? It was a notable one and not to be confounded with any
other. Any one who knew us or who had ever remarked it on her hand would
be able to identify it."

"I have heard the ring mentioned," he replied, "I have even heard that
the police are interested in finding it; but I have not heard that they
have been successful. You encourage me much by assuring me that it was
missing from her hand when you first saw her. That ring may prove our
most valuable clew."

"Yes, but you must also remember that she may have taken it off before
she started for the club-house."

"That is very true."

"You do not know whether they have looked for it at her home?"

"I do not."

"Will you find out, and will you see that I get all my letters?"

"I certainly will, but you must not expect to receive the latter
unopened."

"I suppose not."

I said this with more cheerfulness than he evidently expected. My heart
had been lightened of one load. The ring had not been discovered on
Carmel as I had secretly feared.

"I will take good care of your interests from now on," he remarked, in a
tone much more natural than any he had before used. "Be hopeful and show
a brave front to the district attorney when he comes to interview you. I
hear that he is expected home to-morrow. If you are innocent, you can
face him and his whole office with calm assurance." Which showed how
little he understood my real position.

There was comfort in this very thought, however, and I quietly remarked
that I did not despair.

"And I
will
not," he emphasised, rising with an assumption of ease
which left him as he remained hesitating before me.

It was my moment of advantage, and I improved it by proffering a request
which had been more or less in my mind during the whole of this
prolonged colloquy.

First thanking him for his disinterestedness, I remarked that he had
shown me so much consideration as a lawyer, that I now felt emboldened to
ask something from him as my friend.

"You are free," said I; "I am not. Miss Cumberland will be buried before
I leave these four walls. I hate to think of her going to her grave
without one token from the man to whom she has been only too good and
who, whatever outrage he may have planned to her feelings, is not without
reverence for her character and a heartfelt repentance for whatever he
may have done to grieve her. Charles, a few flowers,—white—no wreath,
just a few which can be placed on her breast or in her hand. You need not
say whom they are from. It would seem a mockery to any one but her.
Lilies, Charles. I shall feel happier to know that they are there. Will
you do this for me?"

"I will."

"That is all."

Instinctively he held out his hand. I dropped mine in it; there was a
slight pressure, some few more murmured words and he was gone.

I slept that night.

I entreat you then
From one that so imperfectly conjects,
You'd take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble
Out of his scattering and unsure observance:
It were not for your quiet, nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.

Othello

I slept, though a question of no small importance was agitating my mind,
demanding instant consideration and a definite answer before I again saw
this friend and adviser. I woke to ask if the suggestion which had come
to me in our brief conversation about the bottles taken from the
wine-vault, was the promising one it had then appeared, or only a fool's
trick bound to end in disaster. I weighed the matter in every
conceivable way, and ended by trusting to the instinct which impelled me
to have resource to the one and only means by which the scent might be
diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in the minds of the
police, and Carmel, as well as myself, be saved from the pit gaping to
receive us.

This was my plan. I would acknowledge to having seen a horse and cutter
leave the club-house by the upper gateway, simultaneously with my
entrance through the lower one. I would even describe the appearance of
the person driving this cutter. No one by the greatest stretch of
imagination would be apt to associate this description with Carmel; but
it might set the authorities thinking, and if by any good chance a cutter
containing a person wearing a derby hat and a coat with an extra high
collar should have been seen on this portion of the road, or if, as I
earnestly hoped, the snow had left any signs of another horse having been
tethered in the clump of trees opposite the one where I had concealed my
own, enough of the truth might be furnished to divide public opinion and
start fresh inquiry.

That a woman's form had sought concealment under these masculine
habiliments would not, could not, strike anybody's mind. Nothing in
the crime had suggested a woman's presence, much less a woman's
active agency.

On the contrary, all the appearances, save such as I believed known to
myself alone, spoke so openly of a man's strength, a man's methods, a
man's appetite, and a man's brutal daring that the suspicion which had
naturally fallen on myself as the one and only person implicated, would
in shifting pass straight to another man, and, if he could not be found,
return to me, or be lost in a maze of speculation. This seemed so evident
after a long and close study of the situation that I was ready with my
confession when Mr. Clifton next came. I had even forestalled it in a
short interview forced upon me by the assistant district attorney and
Chief Hudson. That it had made an altogether greater impression upon the
latter than I had expected, gave me additional courage when I came to
discuss this new line of defence with the young lawyer. I was even able
to tell him that, to all appearance, my long silence on a point so
favourable to my own interests had not militated against me to the extent
one would expect from men so alive to the subterfuges and plausible
inventions of suspected criminals.

"Chief Hudson believes me, late as my statement is. I saw it in his eye."
Thus I went on. "And the assistant district attorney, too. At least, the
latter is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, which was more
than I expected. What do you suppose has happened? Some new discovery on
their part? If so, I ought to know what it is. Believe me, Charles, I
ought to know what it is."

"I have heard of no new discovery," he coldly replied, not quite pleased,
as I could see, either with my words or my manner. "An old one may have
served your purpose. If another cutter besides yours passed through the
club-house grounds at the time you mention, it left tracks which all the
fury of the storm would not have entirely obliterated in the fifteen
minutes elapsing between that time and the arrival of the police. Perhaps
they remember these tracks, and if you had been entirely frank that
night—"

"I know, I know," I put in, "but I wasn't. Lay it to my confusion of
mind—to the great shock I had received, to anything but my own
blood-guiltiness, and take up the matter as it now stands. Can't you
follow up my suggestion? A witness can certainly be found who encountered
that cutter and its occupant somewhere on the long stretch of open road
between The Whispering Pines and the resident district."

"Possibly. It would help. You have not asked for news from the Hill."

The trembling which seized and shook me at these words testified to the
shock they gave me. "Carmel!" I cried. "She is worse—dead!"

"No. She's not worse and she's not dead. But the doctors say it will be
weeks before they can allow a question of any importance to be put to
her. You can see what that will do for us. Her testimony is too important
to the case to be ignored. A delay will follow which may or may not be
favourable to you. I am inclined to think now that it will redound to
your interests. You are ready to swear to the sleigh you speak of; that
you saw it leave the club-house grounds and turn north?"

"Quite ready; but you must not ask me to describe or in any way to
identify its occupant. I saw nothing but the hat and coat I have told you
about. It was just before the moon went under a cloud, or I could not
have seen that much."

Is it so hard to preserve a natural aspect in telling or suggesting a lie
that Charles's look should change as I uttered the last sentence? I do
not easily flush, and since my self-control had been called upon by the
dreadful experiences of the last few days, I had learned to conceal all
other manifestations of feeling except under some exceptional shock. But
a lie embodied in so many words, never came easy to my lips, and I
suppose my voice fell, for his glance became suddenly penetrating, and
his voice slightly sarcastic as he remarked:

"Those clouds obscured more than the moon, I fancy. I only wish that
they had not risen between you and me. This is the blindest case that has
ever been put in my hands. All the more credit to me if I see you through
it, I suppose; but—"

"Tell me," I broke in, with equal desire to cut these recriminations
short and to learn what was going on at the Cumberland house, "have you
been to the Hill or seen anybody who has? Can't you give me some details
of—of Carmel's condition; of the sort of nurse who cares for her, and
how Arthur conducts himself under this double affliction?"