Agatha Webb (13 page)

"Blood," declared the coroner. "There is no doubt about it. Miss
Page was where blood was spilled last night."

"I have another proof against her," Sweetwater went on, in full
enjoyment of his prominence amongst these men, who, up to now, had
barely recognised his existence. "When, full of the suspicion that
Miss Page had had a hand in the theft which had taken place at
Mrs. Webb's house, if not in the murder that accompanied it, I
hastened down to the scene of the tragedy, I met this young woman
issuing from the front gate. She had just been making herself
conspicuous by pointing out a trail of blood on the grass plot.
Dr. Talbot, who was there, will remember how she looked on that
occasion; but I doubt if he noticed how Abel here looked, or so
much as remarked the faded flower the silly boy had stuck in his
buttonhole."

"—me if I did!" ejaculated the coroner.

"Yet that flower has a very important bearing on this case. He had
found it, as he will tell you, on the floor near Batsy's skirts,
and as soon as I saw it in his coat, I bade him take it out and
keep it, for, gentlemen, it was a very uncommon flower, the like
of which can only be found in this town in Mr. Sutherland's
conservatory. I remember seeing such a one in Miss Page's hair,
early in the evening. Have you that flower about you, Abel?"

Abel had, and being filled with importance too, showed it to the
doctor and to Mr. Fenton. It was withered and faded in hue, but it
was unmistakably an orchid of the rarest description.

"It was lying near Batsy," explained Abel. "I drew Mr. Fenton's
attention to it at the time, but he scarcely noticed it."

"I will make up for my indifference now," said that gentleman.

"I should have been shown that flower," put in Knapp.

"So you should," acknowledged Sweetwater, "but when the detective
instinct is aroused it is hard for a man to be just to his rivals;
besides, I was otherwise occupied. I had Miss Page to watch.
Happily for me, you had decided that she should not be allowed to
leave town till after the inquest, and so my task became easy.
This whole day I have spent in sight of Mr. Sutherland's house,
and at nightfall I was rewarded by detecting her end a prolonged
walk in the garden by a hurried dash into the woods opposite. I
followed her and noted carefully all that she did. As she had just
seen Frederick Sutherland and Miss Halliday disappear up the road
together, she probably felt free to do as she liked, for she
walked very directly to the old tree we have just come from, and
kneeling down beside it pulled from the hole underneath something
which rattled in her hand with that peculiar sound we associate
with fresh bank-notes. I had approached her as near as I dared,
and was peering around a tree trunk, when she stooped down again
and plunged both hands into the hole. She remained in this
position so long that I did not know what to make of it. But she
rose at last and turned toward home, laughing to herself in a
wicked but pleased way that did not tend to make me think any more
of her. The moon was shining very brightly by this time and I
could readily perceive every detail of her person. She held her
hands out before her and shook them more than once as she trod by
me, so I was sure there was nothing in them, and this is why I was
so confident we should find the money still in the hole.

"When I saw her enter the house, I set out to find you, but the
court-house room was empty, and it was a long time before I
learned where to look for you. But at last a fellow at Brighton's
corner said he saw four men go by on their way to Zabel's cottage,
and on the chance of finding you amongst them, I turned down here.
The shock you gave me in announcing that you had discovered the
murderer of Agatha Webb knocked me over for a moment, but now I
hope you realise, as I do, that this wretched man could never have
had an active hand in her death, notwithstanding the fact that one
of the stolen bills has been found in his possession. For, and
here is my great point, the proof is not wanting that Miss Page
visited this house as well as Mrs. Webb's during her famous
escapade; or at least stood under the window beneath which I have
just been searching. A footprint can be seen there, sirs, a very
plain footprint, and if Dr. Talbot will take the trouble to
compare it with the slipper he holds in his hand, he will find it
to have been made by the foot that wore that slipper."

The coroner, with a quick glance from the slipper in his hand up
to Sweetwater's eager face, showed a decided disposition to make
the experiment thus suggested. But Mr. Fenton, whose mind was full
of the Zabel tragedy, interrupted them with the question:

"But how do you explain by this hypothesis the fact of James Zabel
trying to pass one of the twenty-dollar bills stolen from Mrs.
Webb's cupboard? Do you consider Miss Page generous enough to give
him that money?"

"You ask ME that, Mr. Fenton. Do you wish to know what
I
think
of the connection between these two great tragedies?"

"Yes; you have earned a voice in this matter; speak, Sweetwater."

"Well, then, I think Miss Page has made an effort to throw the
blame of her own misdoing on one or both of these unfortunate old
men. She is sufficiently cold-blooded and calculating to do so;
and circumstances certainly favoured her. Shall I show how?"

Mr. Fenton consulted Knapp, who nodded his head. The Boston
detective was not without curiosity as to how Sweetwater would
prove the case.

"Old James Zabel had seen his brother sinking rapidly from
inanition; this their condition amply shows. He was weak himself,
but John was weaker, and in a moment of desperation he rushed out
to ask a crumb of bread from Agatha Webb, or possibly—for I have
heard some whispers of an old custom of theirs to join Philemon at
his yearly merry-making and so obtain in a natural way the bite
for himself and brother he perhaps had not the courage to ask for
outright. But death had been in the Webb cottage before him, which
awful circumstance, acting on his already weakened nerves, drove
him half insane from the house and sent him wandering blindly
about the streets for a good half-hour before he reappeared in his
own house. How do I know this? From a very simple fact. Abel here
has been to inquire, among other things, if Mr. Crane remembers
the tune we were playing at the great house when he came down the
main street from visiting old widow Walker. Fortunately he does,
for the trip, trip, trip in it struck his fancy, and he has found
himself humming it over more than once since. Well, that waltz was
played by us at a quarter after midnight, which fixes the time of
the encounter at Mrs. Webb's gateway pretty accurately. But, as
you will soon see, it was ten minutes to one before James Zabel
knocked at Loton's door. How do I know this? By the same method of
reasoning by which I determined the time of Mr. Crane's encounter.
Mrs. Loton was greatly pleased with the music played that night,
and had all her windows open in order to hear it, and she says we
were playing 'Money Musk' when that knocking came to disturb her.
Now, gentlemen, we played 'Money Musk' just before we were called
out to supper, and as we went to supper promptly at one, you can
see just how my calculation was made. Thirty-five minutes, then,
passed between the moment James Zabel was seen rushing from Mrs.
Webb's gateway and that in which he appeared at Loton's bakery,
demanding a loaf of bread, and offering in exchange one of the
bills which had been stolen from the murdered woman's drawer.
Thirty-five minutes! And he and his brother were starving. Does it
look, then, as if that money was in his possession when he left
Mrs. Webb's house? Would any man who felt the pangs of hunger as
he did, or who saw a brother perishing for food before his eyes,
allow thirty-five minutes to elapse before he made use of the
money that rightfully or wrongfully had come into his hand? No;
and so I say that he did not have it when Mr. Crane met him. That,
instead of committing crime to obtain it, he found it in his own
home, lying on his table, when, after his frenzied absence, he
returned to tell his dreadful news to the brother he had left
behind him. But how did it come there? you ask. Gentlemen,
remember the footprints under the window. Amabel Page brought it.
Having seen or perhaps met this old man roaming in or near the
Webb cottage during the time she was there herself, she conceived
the plan of throwing upon him the onus of the crime she had
herself committed, and with a slyness to be expected from one so
crafty, stole up to his home, made a hole in the shade hanging
over an open window, looked into the room where John sat, saw that
he was there alone and asleep, and, creeping in by the front door,
laid on the table beside him the twenty-dollar bill and the bloody
dagger with which she had just slain Agatha Webb. Then she stole
out again, and in twenty minutes more was leading the dance in Mr.
Sutherland's parlour."

"Well reasoned!" murmured Abel, expecting the others to echo him.
But, though Mr. Fenton and Dr. Talbot looked almost convinced,
they said nothing, while Knapp, of course, was quiet as an oyster.

Sweetwater, with an easy smile calculated to hide his
disappointment, went on as if perfectly satisfied.

"Meanwhile John awakes, sees the dagger, and thinks to end his
misery with it, but finds himself too feeble. The cut in his vest,
the dent in the floor, prove this, but if you call for further
proof, a little fact, which some, if not all, of you seem to have
overlooked, will amply satisfy you that this one at least of my
conclusions is correct. Open the Bible, Abel; open it, not to
shake it for what will never fall from between its leaves, but to
find in the Bible itself the lines I have declared to you he wrote
as a dying legacy with that tightly clutched pencil. Have you
found them?"

"No," was Abel's perplexed retort; "I cannot see any sign of
writing on flyleaf or margin."

"Are those the only blank places in the sacred book? Search the
leaves devoted to the family record. Now! what do you find there?"

Knapp, who was losing some of his indifference, drew nearer and
read for himself the scrawl which now appeared to every eye on the
discoloured page which Abel here turned uppermost.

"Almost illegible," he said; "one can just make out these words:
'Forgive me, James—tried to use dagger—found lying—but hand
wouldn't—dying without—don't grieve—true men—haven't disgraced
ourselves—God bless—' That is all."

"The effort must have overcome him," resumed Sweetwater in a voice
from which he carefully excluded all signs of secret triumph, "and
when James returned, as he did a few minutes later, he was
evidently unable to ask questions, even if John was in a condition
to answer them. But the fallen dagger told its own story, for
James picked it up and put it back on the table, and it was at
this minute he saw, what John had not, the twenty-dollar bill
lying there with its promise of life and comfort. Hope revives; he
catches up the bill, flies down to Loton's, procures a loaf of
bread, and comes frantically back, gnawing it as he runs; for his
own hunger is more than he can endure. Re-entering his brother's
presence, he rushes forward with the bread. But the relief has
come too late; John has died in his absence; and James, dizzy with
the shock, reels back and succumbs to his own misery. Gentlemen,
have you anything to say in contradiction to these various
suppositions?"

For a moment Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and even Knapp stood silent;
then the last remarked, with pardonable dryness:

"All this is ingenious, but, unfortunately, it is up set by a
little fact which you yourself have overlooked. Have you examined
attentively the dagger of which you have so often spoken, Mr.
Sweetwater?"

"Not as I would like to, but I noticed it had blood on its edge,
and was of the shape and size necessary to inflict the wound from
which Mrs. Webb died."

"Very good, but there is something else of interest to be observed
on it. Fetch it, Abel."

Abel, hurrying from the room, soon brought back the weapon in
question. Sweetwater, with a vague sense of disappointment
disturbing him, took it eagerly and studied it very closely. But
he only shook his head.

"Bring it nearer to the light," suggested Knapp, "and examine the
little scroll near the top of the handle."

Sweetwater did so, and at once changed colour. In the midst of the
scroll were two very small but yet perfectly distinct letters;
they were J. Z.

"How did Amabel Page come by a dagger marked with the Zabel
initials?" questioned Knapp. "Do you think her foresight went so
far as to provide herself with a dagger ostensibly belonging to
one of these brothers? And then, have you forgotten that when Mr.
Crane met the old man at Mrs. Webb's gateway he saw in his hand
something that glistened? Now what was that, if not this dagger?"

Sweetwater was more disturbed than he cared to acknowledge.

"That just shows my lack of experience," he grumbled. "I thought I
had turned this subject so thoroughly over in my mind that no one
could bring an objection against it."

Knapp shook his head and smiled. "Young enthusiasts like yourself
are great at forming theories which well-seasoned men like myself
must regard as fantastical. However," he went on, "there is no
doubt that Miss Page was a witness to, even if she has not
profited by, the murder we have been considering. But, with this
palpable proof of the Zabels' direct connection with the affair, I
would not recommend her arrest as yet."

"She should be under surveillance, though," intimated the coroner.

"Most certainly," acquiesced Knapp.

As for Sweetwater, he remained silent till the opportunity came
for him to whisper apart to Dr. Talbot, when he said:

"For all the palpable proof of which Mr. Knapp speaks—the J. Z.
on the dagger, and the possibility of this being the object he was
seen carrying out of Philemon Webb's gate—I maintain that this
old man in his moribund condition never struck the blow that
killed Agatha Webb. He hadn't strength enough, even if his
lifelong love for her had not been sufficient to prevent him."