Hand and Ring

The District Attorney made a gesture in the direction of Imogene.

"How came she to be here?" he asked.

Dr. Tredwell rose and drew him from the room.

"It needs some explanation," he said; and began to relate to him how Mr. Orcutt was escorting Miss Dare to the gate when the bough fell which seemed likely to rob him of his life.

Mr. Ferris, through whose mind those old words of the widow were running in a way that could only be accounted for by the memories which the scene within had awakened – "May the vengeance of Heaven light upon the head of him who has brought me to this pass! May the fate that has come upon me be visited upon him, measure for measure, blow for blow, death for death!" – turned with impressive gravity and asked if Miss Dare had not been hurt.

But Dr. Tredwell shook his head.

"She is not even bruised," said he.

"And yet was on his arm?"

"Possibly, though I very much doubt it."

"She was standing at his side," uttered the quiet voice of Mr. Byrd in their ear; "and disappeared when he did, under the falling branch. She must have been bruised, though she says not. I do not think she is in a condition to feel her injuries."

"You were present, then," observed Mr. Ferris, with a meaning glance at the detective.

"I was present," he returned, with a look the District Attorney did not find it difficult to understand.

"Is there any thing you ought to tell me?" Mr. Ferris inquired, when a moment or so later the coroner had been drawn away by a friend.

"I do not know," said Byrd. "Of the conversation that passed between Miss Dare and Mr. Orcutt, but a short portion came to our ears. It is her manner, her actions, that have astonished us, and made us anxious to have you upon the spot." And he told with what an expression of fear she had fled from her interview with Mr. Orcutt in the library, and then gave, as nearly as he could, an account of what had passed between them before the falling of the fatal limb. Finally he said: "Hickory and I expected to find her lying crushed and bleeding beneath, but instead of that, no sooner was the bough lifted than she sprang to her knees, and seeing Mr. Orcutt lying before her insensible, bent over him with that same expression of breathless awe and expectation which you see in her now. It looks as if she were waiting for him to rouse and finish the sentence that was cut short by this catastrophe."

"And what was that sentence?"

"As near as I can recollect, it was this: 'If any man suffers for this crime it shall not be Craik Mansell, but – ' He did not have time to say whom."

"My poor friend!" ejaculated Mr. Ferris, "cut down in the exercise of his duties! It is a mysterious providence – a very mysterious providence!" And crossing again to the sick-room, he went sadly in.

He found the aspect unchanged. On the pillow the same white, immovable face; at the bedside the same constant and expectant watchers. Imogene especially seemed scarcely to have made a move in all the time of his absence. Like a marble image watching over a form of clay she sat silent, breathless, intent – a sight to draw all eyes and satisfy none; for her look was not one of grief, nor of awe, nor of hope, yet it had that within it which made her presence there seem a matter of right even to those who did not know the exact character of the bond which united her to the unhappy sufferer.

Mr. Ferris, who had been only too ready to accept Mr. Byrd's explanation of her conduct, allowed himself to gaze at her unhindered.

Overwhelmed, as he was, by the calamity which promised to rob the Bar of one of its most distinguished advocates, and himself of a long-tried friend, he could not but feel the throb of those deep interests which, in the estimation of this woman at least, hung upon a word which those dying lips might utter. And swayed by this feeling, he unconsciously became a third watcher, though for what, and in hope of what, he could scarcely have told, so much was he benumbed by the suddenness of this great catastrophe, and the extraordinary circumstances by which it was surrounded.

And so one o'clock came and passed.

It was not the last time the clock struck before a change came. The hour of two went by, then that of three, and still, to the casual eye, all remained the same. But ere the stroke of four was heard, Mr. Ferris, who had relaxed his survey of Imogene to bestow a fuller attention upon his friend, felt an indefinable sensation of dismay assail him, and rising to his feet, drew a step or so nearer the bed, and looked at its silent occupant with the air of a man who would fain shut his eyes to the meaning of what he sees before him. At the same moment Mr. Byrd, who had just come in, found himself attracted by the subtle difference he observed in the expression of Miss Dare. The expectancy in her look was gone, and its entire expression was that of awe. Advancing to the side of Mr. Ferris, he glanced down at the dying lawyer. He at once saw what it was that had so attracted and moved the District Attorney. A change had come over Mr. Orcutt's face. Though rigid still, and unrelieved by any signs of returning consciousness, it was no longer that of the man they knew, but a strange face, owning the same features, but distinguished now by a look sinister as it was unaccustomed, filling the breasts of those who saw it with dismay, and making any contemplation of his countenance more than painful to those who loved him. Nor did it decrease as they watched him. Like that charmed writing which appears on a blank paper when it is subjected to the heat, the subtle, unmistakable lines came out, moment by moment, on the mask of his unconscious face, till even Imogene trembled, and turned an appealing glance upon Mr. Ferris, as if to bid him note this involuntary evidence of nature against the purity and good intentions of the man who had always stood so high in the world's regard. Then, satisfied, perhaps, with the expression she encountered on the face of the District Attorney, she looked back; and the heavy minutes went on, only more drearily, and perhaps more fearfully, than before.

Suddenly – was it at a gesture of the physician, or a look from Imogene? – a thrill of expectation passed through the room, and Dr. Tredwell, Mr. Ferris, and a certain other gentleman who had but just entered at a remote corner of the apartment, came hurriedly forward and stood at the foot of the bed. At the same instant Imogene rose, and motioning them a trifle aside, with an air of mingled entreaty and command, bent slowly down toward the injured man. A look of recognition answered her from the face upon the pillow, but she did not wait to meet it, nor pause for the word that evidently trembled on his momentarily conscious lip. Shutting out with her form the group of anxious watchers behind her, she threw all her soul into the regard with which she held him enchained; then slowly, solemnly, but with unyielding determination, uttered these words, which no one there could know were but a repetition of a question made a few eventful hours ago: "If Craik Mansell is not the man who killed Mrs. Clemmens, do you, Mr. Orcutt, tell us who is!" and, pausing, remained with her gaze fixed demandingly on that of the lawyer, undeterred by the smothered exclamations of those who witnessed this scene and missed its clue or found it only in the supposition that this last great shock had unsettled her mind.

The panting sufferer just trembling on the verge of life thrilled all down his once alert and nervous frame, then searching her face for one sign of relenting, unclosed his rigid lips and said, with emphasis:

"Has not Fate spoken?"

Instantly Imogene sprang erect, and, amid the stifled shrieks of the women and the muttered exclamations of the men, pointed at the recumbent figure before them, saying:

"You hear! Tremont Orcutt declares upon his death-bed that it is the voice of Heaven which has spoken in this dreadful calamity. You who were present when Mrs. Clemmens breathed her imprecations on the head of her murderer, must know what that means."

Mr. Ferris, who of all present, perhaps, possessed the greatest regard for the lawyer, gave an ejaculation of dismay at this, and bounding forward, lifted her away from the bedside he believed her to have basely desecrated.

"Madwoman," he cried, "where will your ravings end? He will tell no such tale to me."

But when he bent above the lawyer with the question forced from him by Miss Dare's words, he found him already lapsed into that strange insensibility which was every moment showing itself more and more to be the precursor of death.

The sight seemed to rob Mr. Ferris of his last grain of self-command. Rising, he confronted the dazed faces of those about him with a severe look.

"This charge," said he, "is akin to that which Miss Dare made against herself in the court yesterday morning. When a woman has become crazed she no longer knows what she says."

But Imogene, strong in the belief that the hand of Heaven had pointed out the culprit for whom they had so long been searching, shook her head in quiet denial, and simply saying, "None of you know this man as I do," moved quietly aside to a dim corner, where she sat down in calm expectation of another awakening on the part of the dying lawyer.

It came soon – came before Mr. Ferris had recovered himself, or Dr. Tredwell had had a chance to give any utterance to the emotions which this scene was calculated to awaken.

Rousing as the widow had done, but seeming to see no one, not even the physician who bent close at his side, Mr. Orcutt lifted his voice again, this time in the old stentorian tones which he used in court, and clearly, firmly exclaimed:

"Blood will have blood!" Then in lower and more familiar accents, cried: "Ah, Imogene, Imogene, it was all for you!" And with her name on his lips, the great lawyer closed his eyes again, and sank for the last time into a state of insensibility.

Imogene at once rose.

"I must go," she murmured; "my duty in this place is done." And she attempted to cross the floor.

But the purpose which had sustained her being at an end, she felt the full weight of her misery, and looking in the faces about her, and seeing nothing there but reprobation, she tottered and would have fallen had not a certain portly gentleman who stood near by put forth his arm to sustain her. Accepting the support with gratitude, but scarcely pausing to note from what source it came, she turned for an instant to Mr. Ferris.

"I realize," said she, "with what surprise you must have heard the revelation which has just come from Mr. Orcutt's lips. So unexpected is it that you cannot yet believe it, but the time will come when, of all the words I have spoken, these alone will be found worthy your full credit: that not Craik Mansell, not Gouverneur Hildreth, not even unhappy Imogene Dare herself, could tell you so much of the real cause and manner of Mrs. Clemmens' death as this man who lies stricken here a victim of Divine justice."

And merely stopping to cast one final look in the direction of the bed, she stumbled from the room. A few minutes later and she reached the front door; but only to fall against the lintel with the moan:

"My words are true, but who will ever believe them?"

"Pardon me," exclaimed a bland and fatherly voice over her shoulder, "I am a man who can believe in any thing. Put your confidence in me, Miss Dare, and we will see – we will see."

Startled by her surprise into new life, she gave one glance at the gentleman who had followed her to the door. It was the same who had offered her his arm, and whom she supposed to have remained behind her in Mr. Orcutt's room. She saw before her a large comfortable-looking personage of middle age, of no great pretensions to elegance or culture, but bearing that within his face which oddly enough baffled her understanding while it encouraged her trust. This was the more peculiar in that he was not looking at her, but stood with his eyes fixed on the fading light of the hall-lamp, which he surveyed with an expression of concern that almost amounted to pity.

"Sir, who are you?" she tremblingly asked.

Dropping his eyes from the lamp, he riveted them upon the veil she held tightly clasped in her right hand.

"If you will allow me the liberty of whispering in your ear, I will soon tell you," said he.

She bent her weary head downward; he at once leaned toward her and murmured a half-dozen words that made her instantly start erect with new light in her eyes.

"And you will help me?" she cried.

"What else am I here for?" he answered.

And turning toward a quiet figure which she now saw for the first time standing on the threshold of a small room near by, he said with the calmness of a master:

"Hickory, see that no one enters or leaves the sick-room till I return." And offering Imogene his arm, he conducted her into the library, the door of which he shut to behind them.

XXXIX.

MR. GRYCE

What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance.This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,Was once thought honest.            – Macbeth.

AN hour later, as Mr. Ferris was leaving the house in company with Dr. Tredwell, he felt himself stopped by a slight touch on his arm. Turning about he saw Hickory.

"Beg pardon, sirs," said the detective, with a short bow, "but there's a gentleman, in the library who would like to see you before you go."

They at once turned to the room indicated. But at sight of its well-known features – its huge cases of books, its large centre-table profusely littered with papers, the burnt-out grate, the empty arm-chair – they paused, and it was with difficulty they could recover themselves sufficiently to enter. When they did, their first glance was toward the gentleman they saw standing in a distant window, apparently perusing a book.

"Who is it?" inquired Mr. Ferris of his companion.

"I cannot imagine," returned the other.

Hearing voices, the gentleman advanced.

"Ah," said he, "allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Gryce, of the New York Detective Service."

"Mr. Gryce!" repeated the District Attorney, in astonishment.

The famous detective bowed. "I have come," said he, "upon a summons received by me in Utica not six hours ago. It was sent by a subordinate of mine interested in the trial now going on before the court. Horace Byrd is his name. I hope he is well liked here and has your confidence."

"Mr. Byrd is well enough liked," rejoined Mr. Ferris, "but I gave him no orders to send for you. At what hour was the telegram dated?"

"At half-past eleven; immediately after the accident to Mr. Orcutt."

"I see."

"He probably felt himself inadequate to meet this new emergency. He is a young man, and the affair is certainly a complicated one."

The District Attorney, who had been studying the countenance of the able detective before him, bowed courteously.

"I am not displeased to see you," said he. "If you have been in the room above – "

The other gravely bowed.

"You know probably of the outrageous accusation which has just been made against our best lawyer and most-esteemed citizen. It is but one of many which this same woman has made; and while it is to be regarded as the ravings of lunacy, still your character and ability may weigh much in lifting the opprobrium which any such accusation, however unfounded, is calculated to throw around the memory of my dying friend."

"Sir," returned Mr. Gryce, shifting his gaze uneasily from one small object to another in that dismal room, till all and every article it contained seemed to partake of his mysterious confidence, "this is a world of disappointment and deceit. Intellects we admired, hearts in which we trusted, turn out frequently to be the abodes of falsehood and violence. It is dreadful, but it is true."

Mr. Ferris, struck aghast, looked at the detective with severe disapprobation.

"Is it possible," he asked, "that you have allowed yourself to give any credence to the delirious utterances of a man suffering from a wound on the head, or to the frantic words of a woman who has already abused the ears of the court by a deliberate perjury?" While Dr. Tredwell, equally indignant and even more impatient, rapped with his knuckles on the table by which he stood, and cried:

"Pooh, pooh, the man cannot be such a fool!"

A solemn smile crossed the features of the detective.

"Many persons have listened to the aspersion you denounce. Active measures will be needed to prevent its going farther."

"I have commanded silence," said Dr. Tredwell. "Respect for Mr. Orcutt will cause my wishes to be obeyed."

"Does Mr. Orcutt enjoy the universal respect of the town?"

"He does," was the stern reply.

"It behooves us, then," said Mr. Gryce, "to clear his memory from every doubt by a strict inquiry into his relations with the murdered woman."

"They are known," returned Mr. Ferris, with grim reserve. "They were such as any man might hold with the woman at whose house he finds it convenient to take his daily dinner. She was to him the provider of a good meal."

Mr. Gryce's eye travelled slowly toward Mr. Ferris' shirt stud.

"Gentlemen," said he, "do you forget that Mr. Orcutt was on the scene of murder some minutes before the rest of you arrived? Let the attention of people once be directed toward him as a suspicious party, and they will be likely to remember this fact."

Astounded, both men drew back.

"What do you mean by that remark?" they asked.

"I mean," said Mr. Gryce, "that Mr. Orcutt's visit to Mrs. Clemmens' house on the morning of the murder will be apt to be recalled by persons of a suspicious tendency as having given him an opportunity to commit the crime."

"People are not such fools," cried Dr. Tredwell; while Mr. Ferris, in a tone of mingled incredulity and anger, exclaimed:

"And do you, a reputable detective, and, as I have been told, a man of excellent judgment, presume to say that there could be found any one in this town, or even in this country, who could let his suspicions carry him so far as to hint that Mr. Orcutt struck this woman with his own hand in the minute or two that elapsed between his going into her house and his coming out again with tidings of her death?"

"Those who remember that he had been a participator in the lengthy discussion which had just taken place on the court-house steps as to how a man might commit a crime without laying himself open to the risk of detection, might – yes, sir."

Mr. Ferris and the coroner, who, whatever their doubts or fears, had never for an instant seriously believed the dying words of Mr. Orcutt to be those of confession, gazed in consternation at the detective, and finally inquired:

"Do you realize what you are saying?"

Mr. Gryce drew a deep breath, and shifted his gaze to the next stud in Mr. Ferris' shirt-front.

"I have never been accused of speaking lightly," he remarked. Then, with quiet insistence, asked: "Where was Mrs. Clemmens believed to get the money she lived on?"

"It is not known," rejoined the District Attorney.

"Yet she left a nice little sum behind her?"

"Five thousand dollars," declared the coroner.

"Strange that, in a town like this, no one should know where it came from?" suggested the detective.

The two gentlemen were silent.

"It was a good deal to come from Mr. Orcutt in payment of a single meal a day!" continued Mr. Gryce.

"No one has ever supposed it did come from Mr. Orcutt," remarked Mr. Ferris, with some severity.

"But does any one know it did not?" ventured the detective.

Dr. Tredwell and the District Attorney looked at each other, but did not reply.

"Gentlemen," pursued Mr. Gryce, after a moment of quiet waiting, "this is without exception the most serious moment of my life. Never in the course of my experience – and that includes much – have I been placed in a more trying position than now. To allow one's self to doubt, much less to question, the integrity of so eminent a man, seems to me only less dreadful than it does to you; yet, for all that, were I his friend, as I certainly am his admirer, I would say: 'Sift this matter to the bottom; let us know if this great lawyer has any more in favor of his innocence than the other gentlemen who have been publicly accused of this crime.'"

"But," protested Dr. Tredwell, seeing that the District Attorney was too much moved to speak, "you forget the evidences which underlay the accusation of these other gentlemen; also that of all the persons who, from the day the widow was struck till now, have been in any way associated with suspicion, Mr. Orcutt is the only one who could have had no earthly motive for injuring this humble woman, even if he were all he would have to be to first perform such a brutal deed and then carry out his hypocrisy to the point of using his skill as a criminal lawyer to defend another man falsely accused of the crime."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the detective, "but I forget nothing. I only bring to the consideration of this subject a totally unprejudiced mind and an experience which has taught me never to omit testing the truth of a charge because it seems at first blush false, preposterous, and without visible foundation. If you will recall the conversation to which I have just alluded as having been held on the court-house steps on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, you will remember that it was the intellectual crime that was discussed – the crime of an intelligent man, safe in the knowledge that his motive for doing such a deed was a secret to the world."

"My God!" exclaimed Mr. Ferris, under his breath, "the man seems to be in earnest!"

"Gentlemen," pursued Mr. Gryce, with more dignity than he had hitherto seen fit to assume, "it is not my usual practice to express myself as openly as I have done here to-day. In all ordinary cases I consider it expedient to reserve intact my suspicions and my doubts till I have completed my discoveries and arranged my arguments so as to bear out with some show of reason whatever statement I may feel obliged to make. But the extraordinary features of this affair, and the fact that so many were present at the scene we have just left, have caused me to change my usual tactics. Though far from ready to say that Mr. Orcutt's words were those of confession, I still see much reason to doubt his innocence, and, feeling thus, am quite willing you should know it in time to prepare for the worst."

"Then you propose making what has occurred here public?" asked Mr. Ferris, with emotion.

"Not so," was the detective's ready reply. "On the contrary, I was about to suggest that you did something more than lay a command of silence upon those who were present."

The District Attorney, who, as he afterward said, felt as if he were laboring under some oppressive nightmare, turned to the coroner and said:

"Dr. Tredwell, what do you advise me to do? Terrible as this shock has been, and serious as is the duty it possibly involves, I have never allowed myself to shrink from doing what was right simply because it afforded suffering to myself or indignity to my friends. Do you think I am called upon to pursue this matter?"

The coroner, troubled, anxious, and nearly as much overwhelmed as the District Attorney, did not immediately reply. Indeed, the situation was one to upset any man of whatever calibre. Finally he turned to Mr. Gryce.

"Mr. Gryce," said he, "we are, as you have observed, friends of the dying man, and, being so, may miss our duty in our sympathy. What do you think ought to be done, in justice to him, the prisoner, and the positions which we both occupy?"

"Well, sirs," rejoined Mr. Gryce, "it is not usual, perhaps, for a man in my position to offer actual advice to gentlemen in yours; but if you wish to know what course I should pursue if I were in your places, I should say: First, require the witnesses still lingering around the dying man to promise that they will not divulge what was there said till a week has fully elapsed; next, adjourn the case now before the court for the same decent length of time; and, lastly, trust me and the two men you have hitherto employed, to find out if there is any thing in Mr. Orcutt's past history of a nature to make you tremble if the world hears of the words which escaped him on his death-bed. We shall probably need but a week."

"And Miss Dare?"

"Has already promised secrecy."