The House of the Whispering Pines (20 page)

"You wish to return to your sister? You are at liberty to do so; I will
trouble you no more to-night. Your sleigh is at the door, I presume."

The young man nodded, then rising slowly, looked first at the district
attorney, then at the coroner, with a glance of searching inquiry which
did not escape the watchful eye of Sweetwater, lurking in the rear. There
was no display of anger, scarcely of impatience, in him now. If he spoke,
they did not hear him; and when he moved, it was heavily and with a
drooping head. They watched him go, each as silent as he. The coroner
tried to speak, but succeeded no better than the boy himself. When the
door opened under his hand, they all showed relief, but were startled
back into their former attention by his turning suddenly in the doorway
with this final remark:

"What did you say about a bottle with a special label on it being found
at our house? It never was, or, if it was, some fellow has been playing
you a trick. I carried off those two bottles myself. One you see there;
the other is—I can't tell where; but I didn't take it home. That you
can bet on."

One more look, followed by a heavy frown and a low growling sound in his
throat—which may have been his way of saying good-bye—and he was gone.

Sweetwater came forward and shut the door; then the three men drew more
closely together, and the district attorney remarked:

"He is better at the house. I hadn't the heart on your account, Dr.
Perry, to hurry matters faster than necessity compels. What a lout he is!
Pardon me, but what a lout he is to have had two such uncommon and
attractive sisters."

"And such a father," interposed the coroner.

"Just so—and such a father. Sweetwater? Hey! what's the matter? You
don't look satisfied. Didn't I cover the ground?"

"Fully, sir, so far as I see now, but—"

"Well, well—out with it."

"I don't know what to out with. It's all right but—I guess I'm a fool,
or tired, or something. Can I do anything more for you? If not, I should
like to hunt up a bunk. A night's sleep will make a man of me again."

"Go then; that is, if Dr. Perry has no orders for you."

"None. I want my sleep, too." But Dr. Perry had not the aspect of one
who expects to get it.

Sweetwater brightened. A few more words, some understanding as to the
morrow, and he was gone. The district attorney and the coroner still
sat, but very little passed between them. The clock overhead struck the
hour; both looked up but neither moved. Another fifteen minutes, then
the telephone rang. The coroner rose and lifted the receiver. The
message could be heard by both gentlemen, in the extreme quiet of this
midnight hour.

"Dr. Perry?"

"Yes, I'm listening."

"He came in at a quarter to twelve, greatly agitated and very white. I
ran upon him in the lower hall, and he looked angry enough to knock me
down; but he simply let out a curse and passed straight up to his
sister's room. I waited till he came out; then I managed to get hold of
the nurse and she told me this queer tale:

"He was all in a tremble when he came in, but she declares he had not
been drinking. He went immediately to the bedside; but his sister was
asleep, and he didn't stay there, but went over where the nurse was, and
began to hang about her till suddenly she felt a twitch at her side and,
looking quickly, saw the little book she carries there, falling back into
place. He had lifted it, and probably read what she had written in it
during his absence.

"She was displeased, but he laughed when he saw that he had been caught
and said boldly: 'You are keeping a record of my sister's ravings. Well,
I think I'm as interested in them as you are, and have as much right to
read as you to write. Thank God! they are innocent enough. Even you must
acknowledge that,' She made no answer, for they were innocent enough; but
she'll keep the book away from him after this—of that you may be sure."

"And what is he doing now? Is he going into his own room to-night?"

"No. He went there but only to bring out his pillows. He will sleep in
the alcove."

"Drink?"

"No, not a drop. He has ordered the whiskey locked up. I hear him moaning
sometimes to himself as if he missed it awfully, but not a thimbleful has
left the decanter."

"Goodnight, Hexford."

"Good night."

"You heard?" This to the district attorney.

"Every word."

Both went for their overcoats. Only on leaving did they speak again, and
then it was to say:

"At ten o'clock to-morrow morning."

"At ten o'clock."

Can this avail thee? Look to it!

Prometheus Bound
.

The district attorney was right; Sweetwater was not happy. His night's
rest had not benefited him. He had seemed natural enough when he first
appeared at the coroner's office in the early morning, and equally
natural all through the lengthy conference which followed; but a half
hour later, any one who knew him well,—any of his fellow detectives in
New York; especially Mr. Gryce, who had almost fathered him since he came
among them, a raw and inexperienced recruit—would have seen at first
glance that his spirits were no longer at par, and that the cheer he
displayed in manner and look was entirely assumed, and likely to
disappear as soon as he found himself alone.

And it did so disappear. When, at two o'clock, he entered the club-house
grounds, it was without buoyancy or any of the natural animation with
which he usually went about his work. Each step seemed weighted with
thought, or, at least, heavy with inner dissatisfaction. But his eye was
as keen as ever, and he began to use that eye from the moment he passed
the gates. What was in his mind? Was he hunting for new clews, or was he
merely seeking to establish the old?

The officers on guard knew him, by this time, and let him pass hither,
thither, and where he would, unmolested. He walked up and down the
driveways, peering continuously at the well-trodden snow. He studied the
spaces between. He sauntered to the rear, and looked out over the
golf-links. Then he began to study the ground in this direction, as he
had already studied it in front. The few mutterings which left his lips
continued to speak of discontent. "If I had only had Clarke's chance, or
even Hexford's," was among his complaints. "But what can I hope now? The
snow has been trampled till it is one solid cake of ice, to the very edge
of the golf-links. Beyond that, the distance is too great for minute
inspection. Yet it will have to be gone over, inch by inch, before I
shall feel satisfied. I must know how much of his story is to be
believed, and how much of it we can safely set aside."

He ended by wandering down on the golf-links. Taking out his watch, he
satisfied himself that he had time for an experiment, and immediately
started for Cuthbert Road. An hour later, he came wandering back, on a
different line. He looked soured, disappointed. When near the building
again, he cast his eye over its rear, and gazed long and earnestly at
the window which had been pointed out to him as the one from which a
possible light had shone forth that night. There were no trees on this
side of the house—only vines. But the vines were bare of leaves and
offered no obstruction to his view. "If there had been a light in that
window, any one leaving this house by the rear would have seen it,
unless he had been drunk or a fool," muttered Sweetwater, in
contemptuous comment to himself. "Arthur Cumberland's story is one lie.
I'll take the district attorney's suggestion and return to New York
to-night. My work's done here."

Yet he hung about the links for a long time, and finally ended by
entering the house, and taking up his stand beneath the long, narrow
window of the closet overlooking the golf-links. With chin resting on his
arms, he stared out over the sill and sought from the space before him,
and from the intricacies of his own mind, the hint he lacked to make this
present solution of the case satisfactory to all his instincts.

"Something is lacking." Thus he blurted out after a look behind him into
the adjoining room of death. "I can't say what; nor can I explain my own
unrest, or my disinclination to leave this spot. The district attorney
is satisfied, and so, I'm afraid is the coroner; but I'm not, and I feel
as guilty—"

Here he threw open the window for air, and, thrusting his head out,
glanced over the links, then aside at the pines, showing beyond the line
of the house on the southern end, and then out of mere idleness, down at
the ground beneath him. "As guilty," he went on, "as Ranelagh appears to
be, and some one really is. I—"

Starting, he leaned farther out. What was that he saw in the vines—not
on the snow of the ground, but half way up in the tangle of small
branches clinging close to the stone of the lower story, just beneath
this window? He would see. Something that glistened, something that could
only have got there by falling from this window. Could he reach it? No;
he would have to climb up from below to do that. Well, that was easy
enough. With the thought, he rushed from the room. In another minute he
was beneath that window; had climbed, pulled, pushed his way up; had
found the little pocket of netted vines observable from above; had thrust
in his fingers and worked a small object out; had looked at it, uttered
an exclamation curious in its mixture of suppressed emotions, and let
himself down again into the midst of the two or three men who had scented
the adventure and hastened to be witnesses of its outcome.

"A phial!" he exclaimed, "An empty phial, but—" Holding the little
bottle up between his thumb and forefinger, he turned it slowly about
until the label faced them.

On it was written one word, but it was a word which invariably carries
alarm with it.

That word was:
Poison
.

Sweetwater did not return to New York that night.

I am not mad;—I would to heaven I were!
For then, 't is like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!—
Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
For being not mad, but sensible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reason
How I may be delivered of these woes.

King John
.

"I regret to disturb you, Arthur; but my business is of great importance,
and should be made known to you at once. This I say as a friend. I might
have waited for the report to have reached you from hearsay, or through
the evening papers; but I preferred to be the one to tell you. You can
understand why."

Sullen and unmollified, the young man thus addressed eyed,
apprehensively, his father's old friend, placed so unfortunately in his
regard, and morosely exclaimed:

"Out with it! I'm a poor hand at guessing. What has happened now?"

"A discovery. A somewhat serious one I fear; at least, it will force the
police to new action. Your sister may not have died entirely from
strangulation; other causes may have been at work!"

"Now, what do you mean by that?" Arthur Cumberland was under his own
roof and in presence of one who should have inspired his respect; but
he made no effort to hide the fury which these words called up. "I
should like to know what deviltry is in your minds now. Am I never to
have peace?"

"Peace and tragedy do not often run together," came in the mild tones of
his would-be friend. "A great crime has taken place. All the members of
this family are involved—to say nothing of the man who lies, now, under
the odium of suspicion, in our common county jail. Peace can only come
with the complete clearing up of this crime, and the punishment of the
guilty. But the clearing up must antedate the punishment. Mr. Ranelagh's
assertion that he found Miss Cumberland dead when he approached her, may
not be, as so many now believe, the reckless denial of a criminal,
disturbed in his act. It may have had a basis in fact."

"I don't believe it. Nothing will make me believe it," stormed the other,
jumping up, and wildly pacing the drawing-room floor. "It is all a scheme
for saving the most popular man in society. Society! That for society!"
he shouted out, snapping his fingers. "He is president of the club; the
pet of women; the admired of all the dolts and gawks who are taken with
his style, his easy laughter, and his knack at getting at men's hearts.
He won't laugh so easily when he's up before a jury for murder; and he'll
never again fool women or bulldoze men, even if they are weak enough to
acquit him of this crime. Enough of the smirch will stick to prevent
that. If it doesn't, I'll—"

Again his hands went out in the horribly suggestive way they had done at
his sister's funeral. The coroner sat appalled,—confused, almost
distracted between his doubts, his convictions, his sympathy for the man
and his recoil from the passions he would be only too ready to pardon if
he could feel quite sure of their real root and motive. Cumberland may
have felt the other's silence, or he may have realised the imprudence of
his own fury; for he dropped his hands with an impatient sigh, and
blurted out:

"But you haven't told me your discovery. It seems to me it is a little
late to make discoveries now."

"This was brought about by the persistence of Sweetwater. He seems to
have an instinct for things. He was leaning out of the window at the rear
of the clubhouse—the window of that small room where your sister's coat
was found—and he saw, caught in the vines beneath, a—"

"Why don't you speak out? I cannot tell what he found unless you name
it."

"A little bottle—an apothecary's phial. It was labelled 'Poison,' and it
came from this house."

Arthur Cumberland reeled; then he caught himself up and stood, staring,
with a very obvious intent of getting a grip on himself before he spoke.