Agatha Webb (12 page)

Peering at this shade he gave a grunt.

"You must excuse me for a minute," said he; "I have not found what
I wanted in this room and now must look outside for it. Will
someone bring the lantern?"

"I will," volunteered Knapp, with grim good humour. Indeed, the
situation was almost ludicrous to him.

"Bring it round the house, then, to the ground under this window,"
ordered Sweetwater, without giving any sign that he noticed or
even recognised the other's air of condescension. "And, gentlemen,
please don't follow. It's footsteps I am after, and the fewer we
make ourselves, the easier will it be for me to establish the clew
I am after."

Mr. Fenton stared. What had got into the fellow?

The lantern gone, the room resumed its former appearance.

Abel, who had been much struck by Sweetwater's mysterious
manoeuvres, drew near Dr. Talbot and whispered in his ear: "We
might have done without that fellow from Boston."

To which the coroner replied:

"Perhaps so, and perhaps not. Sweetwater has not yet proved his
case; let us wait till he explains himself." Then, turning to the
constable, he showed him an old-fashioned miniature, which he had
found lying on James's breast, when he made his first examination.
It was set with pearls and backed with gold and was worth many
meals, for the lack of which its devoted owner had perished.

"Agatha Webb's portrait," explained Talbot, "or rather Agatha
Gilchrist's; for I presume this was painted when she and James
were lovers."

"She was certainly a beauty," commented Fenton, as he bent over
the miniature in the moonlight. "I do not wonder she queened it
over the whole country."

"He must have worn it where I found it for the last forty years,"
mused the doctor. "And yet men say that love is a fleeting
passion. Well, after coming upon this proof of devotion, I find it
impossible to believe James Zabel accountable for the death of one
so fondly remembered. Sweetwater's instinct was truer than
Knapp's."

"Or ours," muttered Fenton.

"Gentlemen," interposed Abel, pointing to a bright spot that just
then made its appearance in the dark outline of the shade before
alluded to, "do you see that hole? It was the sight of that prick
in the shade which sent Sweetwater outside looking for footprints.
See! Now his eye is to it" (as the bright spot became suddenly
eclipsed). "We are under examination, sirs, and the next thing we
will hear is that he's not the only person who's been peering into
this room through that hole."

He was so far right that the first words of Sweetwater on his re-
entrance were: "It's all O. K., sirs. I have found my missing
clew. James Zabel was not the only person who came up here from
the Webb cottage last night." And turning to Knapp, who was losing
some of his supercilious manner, he asked, with significant
emphasis: "If, of the full amount stolen from Agatha Webb, you
found twenty dollars in the possession of one man and nine hundred
and eighty dollars in the possession of another, upon which of the
two would you fix as the probable murderer of the good woman?"

"Upon him who held the lion's share, of course."

"Very good; then it is not in this cottage you will find the
person most wanted. You must look—But there! first let me give
you a glimpse of the money. Is there anyone here ready to
accompany me in search of it? I shall have to take him a quarter
of a mile farther up-hill."

"You have seen the money? You know where it is?" asked Dr. Talbot
and Mr. Fenton in one breath.

"Gentlemen, I can put my hand on it in ten minutes."

At this unexpected and somewhat startling statement Knapp looked
at Dr. Talbot and Dr. Talbot looked at the constable, but only the
last spoke.

"That is saying a good deal. But no matter. I am willing to credit
the assertion. Lead on, Sweetwater; I'll go with you."

Sweetwater seemed to grow an inch taller in his satisfied vanity.
"And Dr. Talbot?" he suggested.

But the coroner's duty held him to the house and he decided not to
accompany them. Knapp and Abel, however, yielded to the curiosity
which had been aroused by these extraordinary promises, and
presently the four men mentioned started on their small expedition
up the hill.

Sweetwater headed the procession. He had admonished silence, and
his wish in this regard was so well carried out that they looked
more like a group of spectres moving up the moon-lighted road,
than a party of eager and impatient men. Not till they turned into
the main thoroughfare did anyone speak. Then Abel could no longer
restrain himself and he cried out:

"We are going to Mr. Sutherland's."

But Sweetwater quickly undeceived him.

"No," said he, "only into the woods opposite his house."

But at this Mr. Fenton drew him back.

"Are you sure of yourself?" he said. "Have you really seen this
money and is it concealed in this forest?"

"I have seen the money," Sweetwater solemnly declared, "and it is
hidden in these woods."

Mr. Fenton dropped his arm, and they moved on till their way was
blocked by the huge trunk of a fallen tree.

"It is here we are to look," cried Sweetwater, pausing and
motioning Knapp to turn his lantern on the spot where the shadows
lay thickest. "Now, what do you see?" he asked.

"The upturned roots of a great tree," said Mr. Fenton.

"And under them?"

"A hole, or, rather, the entrance to one."

"Very good; the money is in that hole. Pull it out, Mr. Fenton."

The assurance with which Sweetwater spoke was such that Mr. Fenton
at once stooped and plunged his hand into the hole. But when,
after a hurried search, he drew it out again, there was nothing in
it; the place was empty. Sweetwater stared at Mr. Fenton amazed.

"Don't you find anything?" he asked. "Isn't there a roll of bills
in that hole?"

"No," was the gloomy answer, after a renewed attempt and a second
disappointment. "There is nothing to be found here. You are
labouring under some misapprehension, Sweetwater."

"But I can't be. I saw the money; saw it in the hand of the person
who hid it there. Let me look for it, constable. I will not give
up the search till I have turned the place topsy-turvy."

Kneeling down in Mr. Fenton's place, he thrust his hand into the
hole. On either side of him peered the faces of Mr. Fenton and
Knapp. (Abel had slipped away at a whisper from Sweetwater.) They
were lit with a similar expression of anxious interest and growing
doubt. His own countenance was a study of conflicting and by no
means cheerful emotions. Suddenly his aspect changed. With a quick
twist of his lithe, if awkward, body, he threw himself lengthwise
on the ground, and began tearing at the earth inside the hole,
like a burrowing animal.

"I cannot be mistaken. Nothing will make me believe it is not
here. It has simply been buried deeper than I thought. Ah! What
did I tell you? See here! And see here!"

Bringing his hands into the full blaze of the light, he showed two
rolls of new, crisp bills.

"They were lying under half a foot of earth," said he, "but if
they had been buried as deep as Grannie Fuller's well, I'd have
unearthed them."

Meantime Mr. Fenton was rapidly counting one roll and Knapp the
other. The result was an aggregate sum of nine hundred and eighty
dollars, just the amount Sweetwater had promised to show them.

"A good stroke of business," cried Mr. Fenton. "And now,
Sweetwater, whose is the hand that buried this treasure? Nothing
is to be gained by preserving silence on this point any longer."

Instantly the young man became very grave. With a quick glance
around which seemed to embrace the secret recesses of the forest
rather than the eager faces bending towards him, he lowered his
voice and quietly said:

"The hand that buried this money under the roots of this old tree
is the same which you saw pointing downward at the spot of blood
in Agatha Webb's front yard."

"You do not mean Annabel Page!" cried Mr. Fenton, with natural
surprise.

"Yes, I do; and I am glad it is you who have named her."

A half-hour later these men were all closeted with Dr. Talbot in
the Zabel kitchen. Abel had rejoined them, and Sweetwater was
telling his story with great earnestness and no little show of
pride.

"Gentlemen, when I charge a young woman of respectable appearance
and connections with such a revolting crime as murder, I do so
with good reason, as I hope presently to make plain to you all.

"Gentlemen, on the night and at the hour Agatha Webb was killed, I
was playing with four other musicians in Mr. Sutherland's hallway.
From the place where I sat I could see what went on in the parlour
and also have a clear view of the passageway leading down to the
garden door. As the dancing was going on in the parlour I
naturally looked that way most, and this is how I came to note the
eagerness with which, during the first part of the evening,
Frederick Sutherland and Amabel Page came together in the
quadrilles and country dances. Sometimes she spoke as she passed
him, and sometimes he answered, but not always, although he never
failed to show he was pleased with her or would have been if
something—perhaps it was his lack of confidence in her, sirs—had
not stood in the way of a perfect understanding. She seemed to
notice that he did not always respond, and after a while showed
less inclination to speak herself, though she did not fail to
watch him, and that intently. But she did not watch him any more
closely than I did her, though I little thought at the time what
would come of my espionage. She wore a white dress and white
shoes, and was as coquettish and seductive as the evil one makes
them. Suddenly I missed her. She was in the middle of the dance
one minute and entirely out of it the next. Naturally I supposed
her to have slipped aside with Frederick Sutherland, but he was
still in sight, looking so pale and so abstracted, however, I was
sure the young miss was up to some sort of mischief. But what
mischief? Watching and waiting, but no longer confining my
attention to the parlour, I presently espied her stealing along
the passageway I have mentioned, carrying a long cloak which she
rolled up and hid behind the open door. Then she came back humming
a gay little song which didn't deceive me for a moment. 'Good!'
thought I, 'she and that cloak will soon join company.' And they
did. As we were playing the Harebell mazurka I again caught sight
of her stealthy white figure in that distant doorway. Seizing the
cloak, she wrapped it round her, and with just one furtive look
backwards, seen, I warrant, by no one but myself, she vanished in
the outside dark. 'Now to note who follows her!' But nobody
followed her. This struck me as strange, and having a natural love
for detective work, in spite of my devotion to the arts, I
consulted the clock at the foot of the stairs, and noting that it
was half-past eleven, scribbled the hour on the margin of my
music, with the intention of seeing how long my lady would linger
outside alone. Gentlemen, it was two hours before I saw her face
again. How she got back into the house I do not know. It was not
by the garden door, for my eye seldom left it; yet at or near
half-past one I heard her voice on the stair above me and saw her
descend and melt into the crowd as if she had not been absent from
it for more than five minutes. A half-hour later I saw her with
Frederick again. They were dancing, but not with the same spirit
as before, and even while I watched them they separated. Now where
was Miss Page during those two long hours? I think I know, and it
is time I unburdened myself to the police.

"But first I must inform you of a small discovery I made while the
dance was still in progress. Miss Page had descended the stairs,
as I have said, from what I now know to have been her own room.
Her dress was, in all respects, the same as before, with one
exception—her white slippers had been exchanged for blue ones.
This seemed to show that they had been rendered unserviceable, or
at least unsightly, by the walk she had taken. This in itself was
not remarkable nor would her peculiar escapade have made more than
a temporary impression upon my curiosity if she had not afterward
shown in my presence such an unaccountable and extraordinary
interest in the murder which had taken place in the town below
during the very hours of her absence from Mr. Sutherland's ball.
This, in consideration of her sex, and her being a stranger to the
person attacked, was remarkable, and, though perhaps I had no
business to do what I did, I no sooner saw the house emptied of
master and servants than I stole softly back, and climbed the
stairs to her room. Had no good followed this intrusion, which, I
am quite ready to acknowledge, was a trifle presumptuous, I would
have held my peace in regard to it; but as I did make a discovery
there, which has, as I believe, an important bearing on this
affair, I have forced myself to mention it. The lights in the
house having been left burning, I had no difficulty in finding her
apartment. I knew it by the folderols scattered about. But I did
not stop to look at them. I was on a search for her slippers, and
presently came upon them, thrust behind an old picture in the
dimmest corner of the room. Taking them down, I examined them
closely. They were not only soiled, gentlemen, but dreadfully cut
and rubbed. In short, they were ruined, and, thinking that the
young lady herself would be glad to be rid of them, I quietly put
them into my pocket, and carried them to my own home. Abel has
just been for them, so you can see them for yourselves, and if
your judgment coincides with mine, you will discover something
more on them than mud."

Dr. Talbot, though he stared a little at the young man's confessed
theft, took the slippers Abel was holding out and carefully turned
them over. They were, as Sweetwater had said, grievously torn and
soiled, and showed, beside several deep earth-stains, a mark or
two of a bright red colour, quite unmistakable in its character.