Agatha Webb (26 page)

Satisfied at holding this clew to the riddle, he dropped the book
again at his side and skilfully kicked it far out into the room.
Captain Wattles had seen nothing. He was a man who took in only
one thing at a time.

The penning of that letter went on laboriously. It took so long
that Sweetwater dozed, or pretended to, and when it was at last
done, the clock on the mantelpiece had struck two.

"Halloo there, now!" suddenly shouted the captain, turning on the
messenger. "Are you ready for another journey?"

"That depends," smiled Sweetwater, rising sleepily and advancing.
"Haven't got over the last one yet, and would rather sleep than
start out again."

"Oh, you want pay? Well, you'll get that fast enough if you
succeed in your mission. This letter" he shook it with an
impatient hand—"should be worth two thousand five hundred dollars
to me. If you bring me back that money or its equivalent within
twenty-four hours, I will give you a clean hundred of it. Good
enough pay, I take it, for five hours' journey. Better than sleep,
eh? Besides, you can doze on the cars."

Sweetwater agreed with him in all these assertions. Putting on his
cap, he reached for the letter. He didn't like being made an
instrument for blackmail, but he was curious to see to whom he was
about to be sent. But the captain had grown suddenly wary.

"This is not a letter to be dropped in the mailbox," said he. "You
brought me a line here whose prompt delivery has prevented me from
making a fool of myself to-night. You must do as much with this
one. It is to be carried to its destination by yourself, given to
the person whose name you will find written on it, and the answer
brought back before you sleep, mind you, unless you snatch a wink
or so on the cars. That it is night need not disturb you. It will
be daylight before you arrive at the place to which this is
addressed, and if you cannot get into the house at so early an
hour, whistle three times like this—listen and one of the windows
will presently fly up. You have had no trouble finding me; you'll
have no trouble finding him. When you return, hunt me up as you
did to-night. Only you need not trouble yourself to look for me at
Haberstow's," he added under his breath in a tone that was no
doubt highly satisfactory to himself. "I shall not be there. And
now, off with you!" he shouted. "You've your hundred dollars to
make before daylight, and it's already after two."

Sweetwater, who had stolen a glimpse at the superscription on the
letter he held, stumbled as he went out of the door. It was
directed, as he had expected, to a Frederick, probably to the
second one of whom Captain Wattles had spoken, but not, as he had
expected, to a stranger. The name on the letter was Frederick
Sutherland, and the place of his destination was Sutherlandtown.

The round had come full circle. By various chances and a train of
circumstances for which he could not account, he had been turned
from his first intention and was being brought back stage by stage
to the very spot he had thought it his duty to fly from. Was this
fate? He began to think so, and no longer so much as dreamed of
struggling against it. But he felt very much dazed, and walked
away through the now partially deserted streets with an odd sense
of failure that was only compensated by the hope he now cherished
of seeing his mother again, and being once more Caleb Sweetwater
of Sutherlandtown.

He was clearer, however, after a few blocks of rapid walking, and
then he began to wonder over the contents of the letter he held,
and how they would affect its recipient. Was it a new danger he
was bringing him? Instead of aiding Mr. Sutherland in keeping his
dangerous secret, was he destined to bring disgrace upon him, not
only by his testimony before the coroner, but by means of this
letter, which, whatever it contained, certainly could not bode
good to the man from whom it was designed to wrest two thousand
five hundred dollars?

The fear that he was destined to do so grew upon him rapidly, and
the temptation to open the letter and make himself master of its
contents before leaving town at last became so strong that his
sense of honour paled before it, and he made up his mind that
before he ventured into the precincts of Sutherlandtown he would
know just what sort of a bombshell he was carrying into the
Sutherland family. To do this he stopped at the first respectable
lodging-house he encountered and hired a room. Calling for hot
water "piping hot," he told them—he subjected the letter to the
effects of steam and presently had it open. He was not
disappointed in its contents, save that they were even more
dangerous than he had anticipated. Captain Wattles was an old
crony of Frederick's and knew his record better than anyone else
in the world. From this fact and the added one that Frederick had
stood in special need of money at the time of Agatha Webb's
murder, the writer had no hesitation in believing him guilty of
the crime which opened his way to a fortune, and though under
ordinary circumstances he would, as his friend Frederick already
knew, be perfectly willing to keep his opinions to himself, he was
just now under the same necessity for money that Frederick had
been at that fatal time, and must therefore see the colour of two
thousand five hundred dollars before the day was out if Frederick
desired to have his name kept out of the Boston papers. That it
had been kept out up to this time argued that the crime had been
well enough hidden to make the alternative thus offered an
important one.

There was no signature.

Sweetwater, affected to an extent he little expected, resealed the
letter, made his excuses to the landlord, and left the house. Now
he could see why he had not been allowed to make his useless
sacrifice. Another man than himself suspected Frederick, and by a
word could precipitate the doom he already saw hung too low above
the devoted head of Mr. Sutherland's son to be averted.

"Yet I'll attempt that too," burst impetuously from his lips. "If
I fail, I can but go back with a knowledge of this added danger.
If I succeed, why I must still go back. From some persons and from
some complications it is useless to attempt flight."

Returning to the club-house he had first entered in his search for
Captain Wattles, he asked if that gentleman had yet come in. This
time he was answered by an affirmative, though he might almost as
well have not been, for the captain was playing cards in a private
room and would not submit to any interruption.

"He will submit to mine," retorted Sweetwater to the man who had
told him this. "Or wait; hand him back this letter and say that
the messenger refuses to deliver it."

This brought the captain out, as he had fully expected it would.

"Why, what—" began that gentleman in a furious rage.

But Sweetwater, laying his hand on the arm he knew to be so
sensitive, rose on tiptoe and managed to whisper in the angry
man's ear:

"You are a card-sharp, and it will be easy enough to ruin you.
Threaten Frederick Sutherland and in two weeks you will be
boycotted by every club in this city. Twenty-five hundred dollars
won't pay you for that."

This from a nondescript fellow with no grains of a gentleman about
him in form, feature, or apparel! The captain stared nonplussed,
too much taken aback to be even angry.

Suddenly he cried:

"How do you know all this? How do you know what is or is not in
the letter I gave you?"

Sweetwater, with a shrug that in its quiet significance seemed to
make him at once the equal of his interrogator, quietly pressed
the quivering limb under his hand and calmly replied:

"I know because I have read it. Before putting my head in the
lion's mouth, I make it a point to count his teeth," and lifting
his hand, he drew back, leaving the captain reeling.

"What is your name? Who are you?" shouted out Wattles as
Sweetwater was drawing off.

It was the third time he had been asked that question within
twenty-four hours, but not before with this telling emphasis. "Who
are you, I say, and what can you do to me—?"

"I am—But that is an insignificant detail unworthy of your
curiosity. As to what I can do, wait and see. But first burn that
letter."

And turning his back he fled out of the building, followed by
oaths which, if not loud, were certainly deep and very far-
reaching.

It was the first time Captain Wattles had met his match in
audacity.

On his way to the depot, Sweetwater went into the Herald office
and bought a morning paper. At the station he opened it. There was
one column devoted to the wreck of the Hesper, and a whole half-
page to the proceedings of the third day's inquiry into the cause
and manner of Agatha Webb's death. Merely noting that his name was
mentioned among the lost, in the first article, he began to read
the latter with justifiable eagerness. The assurance given in
Captain Wattles's letter was true. No direct suspicion had as yet
fallen on Frederick. As the lover of Amabel Page, his name was
necessarily mentioned, but neither in the account of the inquest
nor in the editorials on the subject could he find any proof that
either the public or police had got hold of the great idea that he
was the man who had preceded Amabel to Agatha's cottage. Relieved
on this score, Sweetwater entered more fully into the particulars,
and found that though the jury had sat three days, very little
more had come to light than was known on the morning he made that
bold dash into the Hesper. Most of the witnesses had given in
their testimony, Amabel's being the chief, and though no open
accusation had been made, it was evident from the trend of the
questions put to the latter that Amabel's connection with the
affair was looked upon as criminal and as placing her in a very
suspicious light. Her replies, however, as once before, under a
similar but less formal examination, failed to convey any
recognition on her part either of this suspicion or of her own
position; yet they were not exactly frank, and Sweetwater saw, or
thought he saw (naturally failing to have a key to the situation),
that she was still working upon her old plan of saving both
herself and Frederick, by throwing whatever suspicion her words
might raise upon the deceased Zabel. He did not know, and perhaps
it was just as well that he did not at this especial juncture,
that she was only biding her time—now very nearly at hand—and
that instead of loving Frederick, she hated him, and was
determined upon his destruction. Reading, as a final clause, that
Mr. Sutherland was expected to testify soon in explanation of his
position as executor of Mrs. Webb's will, Sweetwater grew very
serious, and, while no change took place in his mind as to his
present duty, he decided that his return must be as unobtrusive as
possible, and his only too timely reappearance on the scene of the
inquiry kept secret till Mr. Sutherland had given his evidence and
retired from under the eyes of his excited fellow-citizens.

"The sight of me might unnerve him," was Sweetwater's thought,
"precipitating the very catastrophe we dread. One look, one word
on his part indicative of his inner apprehensions that his son had
a hand in the crime which has so benefited him, and nothing can
save Frederick from the charge of murder. Not Knapp's skill, my
silence, or Amabel's finesse. The young man will be lost."

He did not know, as we do, that Amabel's finesse was devoted to
winning a husband for herself, and that, in the event of failure,
the action she threatened against her quondam lover would be
precipitated that very day at the moment when the clock struck
twelve.

Sweetwater arrived home by the way of Portchester. He had seen one
or two persons he knew, but, so far, had himself escaped
recognition. The morning light was dimly breaking when he strode
into the outskirts of Sutherlandtown and began to descend the
hill. As he passed Mr. Halliday's house he looked up, and was
astonished to see a light burning in one deeply embowered window.
Alas! he did not know how early one anxious heart woke during
those troublous days. The Sutherland house was dark, but as he
crept very close under its overhanging eaves he heard a deep sigh
uttered over his head, and knew that someone was up here also in
anxious expectation of a day that was destined to hold more than
even he anticipated.

Meanwhile, the sea grew rosy, and the mother's cottage was as yet
far off. Hurrying on, he came at last under the eye of more than
one of the early risers of Sutherlandtown.

"What, Sweetwater! Alive and well!"

"Hey, Sweetwater, we thought you were lost on the Hesper!"

"Halloo! Home in time to see the pretty Amabel arrested?" Phrases
like these met him at more than one corner; but he eluded them
all, stopping only to put one hesitating question. Was his mother
well?

Home fears had made themselves felt with his near approach to that
humble cottage door.

It was the last day of the inquest, and to many it bade fair to be
the least interesting. All the witnesses who had anything to say
had long ago given in their testimony, and when at or near noon
Sweetwater slid into the inconspicuous seat he had succeeded in
obtaining near the coroner, it was to find in two faces only any
signs of the eagerness and expectancy which filled his own breast
to suffocation. But as these faces were those of Agnes Halliday
and Amabel Page, he soon recognised that his own judgment was not
at fault, and that notwithstanding outward appearances and the
languid interest shown in the now lagging proceedings, the moment
presaged an event full of unseen but vital consequence.