The House of the Whispering Pines (30 page)

Clifton frowned. We were quite alone. Leaning forward, he touched my arm.

"Elwood," said he, "you've not been quite open with me."

I smiled. If half the bitterness and sorrow in my heart went into that
smile, it must have been a sad and bitter one indeed.

"You have a right to reproach me," said I, "but not wholly. I did not
deceive you in essentials. You may still believe me as guiltless of
Adelaide's violent death as a man can be who drove her and hers into
misery which death alone could end."

"I will believe it," he muttered, "I must." And he dropped the subject,
as he made me see, forever.

I drew a deep breath of relief. I had come very near to revealing
my secret.

When we returned to the court-room, we found it already packed with a
very subdued and breathless crowd. It differed somewhat from the one
which had faced us in the morning; but Ella and her parents were
there and many others of the acknowledged friends of the accused and
of his family.

He, himself, wore the heavy and dogged air which became him least.
Physically refreshed, he carried himself boldly, but it was a boldness
which convinced me that any talk he may have had with his lawyer, had
been no more productive of comfort than the one I had held with mine.

As he took the witness chair, and prepared to meet the cross-examination
of the district attorney, a solemn hush settled upon the room. Would the
coming ordeal rob his brow of its present effrontery, or would he
continue to bear himself with the same surly dignity, which,
misunderstood as it was, produced its own effect, and at certain moments
seemed to shake even the confidence of Mr. Fox, settled as he seemed to
be in his belief in the integrity of his cause and the rights of the
prosecution.

Shaken or not, his attack was stern, swift, and to the point.

"Was the visit you made to the wine-vault on the evening of the second of
December, the first one you had ever paid there?"

"No; I had been there once before. But I always paid for my
depredations," he added, proudly.

"The categorical answer, Mr. Cumberland. Anything else is superfluous."

Arthur's lip curled, but only for an instant; and nothing could have
exceeded the impassiveness of his manner as Mr. Fox went on.

"Then you knew the way?"

"Perfectly."

"And the lock?"

"Sufficiently well to open it without difficulty."

"How long do you think you were in entering the house and procuring
these bottles?"

"I cannot say. I have no means of knowing; I never thought of looking at
my watch."

"Not when you started? Not when you left Cuthbert Road?"

"No, sir."

"But you know when you left the club-house to go back?"

"Only by this—it had not yet begun to snow. I'm told that the first
flakes fell that night at ten minutes to eleven. I was on the golf-links
when this happened. You can fix the time yourself. Pardon me," he added,
with decided ill-grace as he met Mr. Fox's frown. "I forgot your
injunction."

Mr. Fox smiled an acrid smile, as he asked: "Whereabouts on the
golf-links? They extend for some distance, you remember."

"They are six hundred yards across from first tee to the third hole,
which is the nearest one to Cuthbert Road," Arthur particularised. "I
was—no, I can't tell you just where I was at that moment. It was a good
ways from the house. The snow came on very fiercely. For a little while I
could not see my way."

"How, not see your way?"

"The snow flew into my eyes."

"Crossing the links?"

"Yes, sir, crossing the links."

"But the storm came from the west. It should have beaten against
your back."

"Back or front, it bothered me. I could not get on as fast as I wished."

Mr. Fox cast a look at the jury. Did they remember the testimony of the
landlord that Mr. Cumberland's coat was as thickly plastered with snow on
the front as it had been on the back. He seemed to gather that they did,
for he went on at once to say:

"You are accustomed to the links? You have crossed them often?"

"Yes, I play golf there all summer."

"I'm not alluding to the times when you play. I mean to ask whether or
not you had ever before crossed them directly to Cuthbert Road?"

"Yes, I had."

"In a storm?"

"No, not in a storm."

"How long did it take you that time to reach Cuthbert Road from The
Whispering Pines?"

Mr. Moffat bounded to his feet, but the prisoner had answered before he
could speak.

"Just fifteen minutes."

"How came you to know the time so exactly?"

"Because that day I did look at my watch. I had an engagement in
the lower town, and had only twenty minutes in which to keep it. I
was on time."

Honest at the core. This boy was growing rapidly in my favour. But this
frank but unwise answer was not pleasing to his counsel, who would have
advised, no doubt, a more general and less precise reply. However, it
had been made and Moffat was not a man to cry over spilled milk. He did
not even wince when the district attorney proceeded to elicit from the
prisoner that he was a good walker, not afraid in the least of
snow-storms and had often walked, in the teeth of the gale twice that
distance in less than half an hour. Now, as the storm that night had
been at his back, and he was in a hurry to reach his destination, it
was evidently incumbent upon him to explain how he had managed to use
up the intervening time of forty minutes before entering the hotel at
half-past eleven.

"Did you stop in the midst of the storm to take a drink?" asked the
district attorney.

As the testimony of the landlord in Cuthbert Road had been explicit as
to the fact of his having himself uncorked the bottle which the prisoner
had brought into the hotel, Arthur could not plead yes. He must say no,
and he did.

"I drank nothing; I was too busy thinking. I was so busy thinking I
wandered all over those links."

"In the blinding snow?"

"Yes, in the snow. What did I care for the snow? I did not understand my
sister being in the club-house. I did not like it; I was tempted at times
to go back."

"And why didn't you?"

"Because I was more of a brute than a brother—because Cuthbert Road drew
me in spite of myself—because—" He stopped with the first hint of
emotion we had seen in him since the morning. "I did not know what was
going on there or I should have gone back," he flashed out, with a
defiant look at his counsel.

Again sympathy was with him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first
attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point
more vulnerable.

"When you heard your sister's voice in the club-house, how did you think
she had got into the building?"

"By means of the keys Ranelagh had left at the house."

"When, instead of taking the whole bunch, you took the one key you wanted
from the ring, did you do so with any idea she might want to make use of
the rest?"

"No, I never thought of it. I never thought of her at all."

"You took your one key, and let the rest lie?"

"You've said it."

"Was this before or after you put on your overcoat?"

"I'm not sure; after, I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that I
had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at my trousers' pocket."

"You dropped this key into your trousers' pocket?"

"I did."

"Mr. Cumberland, let me ask you to fix your memory on the moments you
spent in the hall. Did you put on your hat before you pocketed the key,
or afterwards?"

"My hat? How can I tell? My mind wasn't on my hat. I don't know when I
put it on."

"You absolutely do not remember?"

"No."

"Nor where you took it from?"

"No."

"Whether you saw the keys first, and then went for your hat; or having
pocketed the key, waited—"

"I did not wait."

"Did not stand by the table thinking?"

"No, I was in too much of a hurry."

"So that you went straight out?"

"Yes, as quickly as I could."

The district attorney paused, to be sure of the attention of the jury.
When he saw that every eye of that now thoroughly aroused body was on
him, he proceeded to ask: "Does that mean immediately, or as soon as you
could after you had made certain preparations, or held certain talk with
some one you called, or who called to you?"

"I called to nobody. I—I went out immediately."

It was evident that he lied; evident, too, that he had little hope from
his lie. Uneasiness was taking the place of confidence in his youthful,
untried, undisciplined mind. Carmel had spoken to him in the hall—I
guessed it then, I knew it afterward—and he thought to deceive this
court and blindfold a jury, whose attention had been drawn to this point
by his own counsel.

District Attorney Fox smiled. "How then did you get into the stable?"

"The stable! Oh, I had no trouble in getting into the stable."

"Was it unlocked?"

A slow flush broke over the prisoner's whole face. He saw where he had
been landed and took a minute to pull himself together before he replied:
"I had the key to that door, too. I got it out of the kitchen."

"You have not spoken of going into the kitchen."

"I have not spoken of coming downstairs."

"You went into the kitchen?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"When I first came down."

"That is not in accordance with your direct testimony. On the contrary,
you said that on coming downstairs you went straight to the rack for your
overcoat. Stenographer read what the prisoner said on this topic."

A rustling of leaves, distinctly to be heard in the deathlike silence of
the room, was followed by the reading of this reply and answer:

"
Yet you cannot say which of these two overcoats you put on when you
left your home an hour or so after finishing your dinner?
"

"
I cannot. I was in no condition to notice. I was bent on going into
town and, on coming downstairs, I went straight to the rack and pulled on
the first things that offered.
"

The prisoner stood immobile but with a deepening line gathering on
his brow until the last word fell. Then he said: "I forgot. I went
for the key before I put on my overcoat. I wanted to see how the sick
horse looked."

"Did you drop this key into your pocket, too?"

"No, I carried it into the hall."

"What did you do with it there?"

"I don't know. Put it on the table, I suppose."

"Don't you remember? There were other keys lying on this table. Don't you
remember what you did with the one in your hand while you took the
club-house key from the midst of Mr. Ranelagh's bunch?"

"I laid it on the table. I must have—there was no other place to put
it."

"Laid it down by itself?"

"Yes."

"And took it up when you went out?"

"Of course."

"Carrying it straight to the stable?"

"Naturally."

"What did you do with it when you came out?"

"I left it in the stable-door."

"You did? What excuse have you to give for that?"

"None. I was reckless, and didn't care for anything—that's all."

"Yet you took several minutes, for all your hurry and your indifference,
to get the stable key and look in at a horse that wasn't sick enough to
keep your coachman home from a dance."

The prisoner was silent.

"You have no further explanation to give on this subject?"

"No. All fellows who love horses will understand."

The district attorney shrugged this answer away before he went on to say:
"You have listened to Zadok Brown's testimony. When he returned at three,
he found the stable-door locked, and the key hanging up on its usual nail
in the kitchen. How do you account for this?"

"There are two ways."

"Mention them, if you please."

"Zadok had been to a dance, and may not have been quite clear as to what
he saw. Or, finding the stable door open, may have blamed himself for the
fact and sought to cover up his fault with a lie."

"Have you ever caught him in a lie?"

"No; but there's always a first time."

"You would impeach his testimony then?"

"No. You asked me how this discrepancy could be explained, and I have
tried to show you."

"Mr. Cumberland, the grey mare was out that night; this has been
amply proved."

"If you believe Zadok, yes."

"You have heard other testimony corroborative of this fact. She was seen
on the club-house road that night, by a person amply qualified to
identify her."

"So I've been told."

"The person driving this horse wore a hat, identified as an old one of
yours, which hat was afterwards found at your house on a remote peg in a
seldom-used closet. If you were not this person, how can you explain the
use of your horse, the use of your clothes, the locking of the
stable-door—which you declare yourself to have left open—and the
hanging up of the key on its own nail?"

It was a crucial question—how crucial no one knew but our two selves. If
he answered at all, he must compromise Carmel. I had no fear of his doing
this, but I had great fear of what Ella might do if he let this
implication stand and made no effort to exonerate himself by denying his
presence in the cutter, and consequent return to the Cumberland home. The
quick side glances I here observed cast in her direction by both father
and mother, showed that she had made some impulsive demonstration visible
to them, if not to others and fearful of the consequences if I did not
make some effort to hold her in check, I kept my eyes in her direction,
and so lost Arthur's look and the look of his counsel as he answered,
with just the word I had expected—a short and dogged:

"I cannot explain."