The House of the Whispering Pines (6 page)

"To write this note was easy, but to deliver it involved difficulties.
Miss Cumberland's eyes seemed to be more upon me than usual. Mine were
obliged to respond and Carmel seeing this, kept hers on her plate or on
the one other person seated at the table, her brother Arthur. But the
opportunity came as we all rose and passed together into the
drawing-room. Carmel fell into place at my side and I slipped the note
into her hand. She had not expected it and I fear that the action was
observed, for when I took my leave of Miss Cumberland shortly after, I
was struck by her expression. I had never seen such a look on her face
before, nor can I conceive of one presenting a more extraordinary
contrast to the few and commonplace words with which she bade me good
evening. I could not forget that look. I continued to see those pinched
features and burning eyes all the way home where I went to get my
grip-sack, and I saw them all the way to the station, though my thoughts
were with her sister and the joys I had planned for myself. Man's
egotism, Dr. Perry. I neither knew Adelaide nor did I know the girl whose
love I had so over-estimated. She failed me, Dr. Perry. I was met at the
station not by herself, but by a letter—a few hurried lines given me by
an unknown man—in which she stated that I had asked too much of her,
that she could not so wrong her sister who had brought her up and done
everything for her since her mother died. I have not that letter now, or
I would show it to you. In my raging disappointment I tore it up on the
place where I received it, and threw the pieces away. I had staked my
whole future on one desperate throw and I had lost. If I had had a
pistol—" I stopped, warned by an uneasy movement on the part of the man
I addressed, that I had better not dilate too much upon my feelings.
Indeed, I had forgotten to whom I was talking. I realised nothing,
thought of nothing but the misery I was describing. His action recalled
me to the infinitely deeper misery of my present situation, and conscious
of the conclusions which might be drawn from such impulsive utterances, I
pulled myself together and proceeded to finish my story with greater
directness.

"I did not leave the station till the ten-thirty train had gone. I had
hopes, still, of seeing her, or possibly I dreaded the long ride back to
my apartments. It was from sheer preoccupation of mind that I drove this
way instead of straight out by Marshall Avenue. I had no intention of
stopping here; the club-house was formally closed yesterday, as you may
know, and I did not even have the keys with me. But, as I reached the
bend in the road where you get your first sight of the buildings, I saw a
thin streak of smoke rising from one of its chimneys, and anxious as to
its meaning, I drove in—"

"Wait, Mr. Ranelagh, I am sorry to interrupt you, but by which gate did
you enter?"

"By the lower one."

"Was it snowing at this time?"

"Not yet. It was just before the clouds rushed upon the moon. I could see
everything quite plainly."

My companion nodded and I went breathlessly on. Any question of his
staggered me. I was so ignorant of the facts at his command, of the facts
at any one's command outside my own experience and observation, that the
simplest admission I made might lead directly to some clew of whose very
existence I was unaware. I was not even able to conjecture by what chance
or at whose suggestion the police had raided the place and discovered
the tragedy which had given point to that raid. No one had told me, and I
had met with no encouragement to ask. I felt myself sliding amid
pitfalls. My own act might precipitate the very doom I sought to avert.
Yet I must preserve my self-possession and answer all questions as
truthfully as possible lest I stumble into a web from which no skill of
my own or of another could extricate me.

"Fastening my horse to one of the pine trees in the thickest clump I
saw—he is there now, I suppose—I crept up to the house, and tried the
door. It was on the latch and I stole in. There was no light on the lower
floor, and after listening for any signs of life, I began to feel my way
about the house, searching for the intruder. As I did not wish to attract
attention to myself, I took off my shoes. I went through the lower rooms,
and then I came upstairs. It was some time before I reached the—the room
where a fire had been lit; but when I did I knew—not," I hastily
corrected, as I caught his quick concentrated glance, "what had happened
or whom I should find there, but that this was the spot where the
intruder had been, possibly was now, and I determined to grapple with
him. What—what have I said?" I asked in anguish, as I caught a look on
the coroner's face of irrepressible repulsion and disgust, slight and
soon gone but unmistakable so long as it lasted.

"Nothing," he replied, "go on."

But his tone, considerate as it had been from the first, did not deceive
me. I knew that I had been detected in some slip or prevarication. As I
had omitted all mention of the most serious part of my adventure—had
said nothing of my vision of Carmel or the terrible conclusions which her
presence there had awakened—my conscience was in a state of perturbation
which added greatly to my confusion. For a moment I did not know where I
stood, and I am afraid I betrayed a sense of my position. He had to
recall me to myself by an unimportant question or two before I could go
on. When I did proceed, it was with less connection of ideas and a haste
in speaking which was not due altogether to the harrowing nature of the
tale itself.

"I had matches in my pocket and I struck one," I began. "Afterwards I lit
the candle. The emptiness of the room did not alarm me. I experienced the
sense of tragedy. Seeing the pillows heaped high and too regularly for
chance along a lounge ordinarily holding only two, I tore them off. I saw
a foot, a hand, a tress of bright hair. Even then I did not think of
her
. Why should I? Not till I uncovered the face did I know the terrors
of my discovery, and then, the confusion of it all unmanned me and I fell
on my knees—"

"Go on! Go on!"

The impetuosity, the suspense in the words astounded me. I stared at the
coroner and lost the thread of my story—What had I to say more? How
account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my
own self, if in obedience to the demands of the situation I subdued my
own memory and blotted out all I had seen but that which it was safe to
confess to?

"There is no more to say," I murmured. "The horror of that moment made a
chaos in my mind. I looked at the dead body of her who lay there as I
have looked at everything since; as I looked at the police when they
came—as I look at you now. But I know nothing. It is all a
phantasmagoria to me—with no more meaning than a nightmare. She is
dead—I know that—but beyond that, all is doubt—confusion—what the
world and all its passing show is to a blind man. I can neither
understand nor explain."

There is no agony and no solace left;
Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more

Prometheus Unbound

The coroner's intent look which had more or less sustained me through
this ordeal, remained fixed upon my face as though he were still anxious
to see me exonerate myself. How much did he know? That was the question.
How much did he know
?

Having no means of telling, I was forced to keep silent. I had revealed
all I dared to. As I came to this conclusion, his eyes fell and I knew
that the favorable minute had passed.

The question he now asked proved it.

"You say that you were not blind to surrounding objects, even if they
conveyed but little meaning to you. You must have seen, then, that the
room where Miss Cumberland lay contained two small cordial glasses, both
still moist with some liqueur."

"I noticed that, yes."

"Some one must have drunk with her?"

"I cannot contradict you."

"Was Miss Cumberland fond of that sort of thing?"

"She detested liquor of all kinds. She never drank I never saw a woman
so averse to wine." I spoke before I thought. I might better have been
less emphatic, but the mystery of those glasses had affected me from the
first. Neither she nor Carmel ever allowed themselves so much as a social
glass, yet those glasses had been drained. "Perhaps the cold—"

"There was a third glass. We found it in the adjoining closet. It had not
been used. That third glass has a meaning if only we could find it out."

A possibility which had risen in my mind faded at these words.

"Three glasses," I dully repeated.

"And a small flask of cordial. The latter seems pure enough."

"I cannot understand it." The phrase had become stereotyped. No other
suggested itself to me.

"The problem would be simple enough if it were not for those-marks on her
neck. You saw those, too, I take it?"

"Yes. Who made them? What man—"

The lie, or rather the suggestion of a lie, flushed my face. I was
conscious of this, but it did not trouble me. I was panting for relief. I
could not rest till I knew the nature of the doubt in this man's mind. If
these words, or any words I could use, would serve to surprise his
secret, then welcome the lie or suggestion of a lie. "It was a brute's
act," I went on, bungling with my sentences in anxiety to see if my
conclusions fitted in with his own. "
Who was the brute
? Do you know,
Dr. Perry?"

"There were three glasses in those rooms. Only two were drank from," he
answered, steadily. "Tomorrow I may be in a position to answer your
question. I am not to-night."

Why did I take heart? Not a change, not the flicker of one had passed
over his countenance at my utterance of the word
man
. Either his
official habit had stood him in wonderful stead, or the police had failed
so far to see any connection between this murder and the young girl whose
footprints, for all I knew, still lingered on the stairs.

Would the morrow arm them with completer knowledge? As I turned from his
retreating figure and flung myself down before the hearth, this was the
question I continually propounded to myself, in vain repetition. Would
the morrow reveal the fact that Adelaide's young sister had been with her
in the hour of death, or would the fates propitiously aid her in
preserving this secret as they had already aided her in selecting for the
one man who shared it, him who of all others was bound by honour and
personal consideration for her not to divulge what he knew.

Thus the hours between two and seven passed when I fell into a fitful
sleep, from which I was rudely wakened by a loud rattle at my door,
followed by the entrance of the officer who had walked up and down the
corridor all night.

"The waggon is here," said he. "Breakfast will be given you at the
station."

To which Hexford, looking over his shoulder, added: "I'm sorry to
say that we have here the warrant for your arrest. Can I do
anything for you?"

"Warrant!" I burst out, "what do you want of a warrant? It is as a
witness you seek to detain me, I presume?"

"No," was his brusque reply. "The charge upon which you are arrested is
one of murder. You will have to appear before a magistrate. I'm sorry to
be the one to tell you this, but the evidence against you is very strong,
and the police must do their duty."

"But I am innocent, absolutely innocent," I protested, the perspiration
starting from every pore as the full meaning of the charge burst upon me.
"What I have told you was correct. I, myself, found her dead—"

Hexford gave me a look.

"Don't talk," he kindly suggested. "Leave that to the lawyers." Then, as
the other man turned aside for a moment, he whispered in my ear, "It's no
go; one of our men saw you with your fingers on her throat. He had
clambered into a pine tree and the shade of the window was up. You had
better come quietly. Not a soul believes you innocent."

This, then, was what had doomed me from the start; this, and that partly
burned letter. I understood now why the kind-hearted coroner, who loved
my father, had urged me to tell my tale, hoping that I would explain this
act and give him some opportunity to indulge in a doubt. And I had failed
to respond to the hint he had given me. The act itself must appear so
sinister and the impulse which drove me to it so incomprehensible,
without the heart-rending explanation I dare not subjoin, that I never
questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.

Yet this silence had undone me. I had been seen fingering my dead
betrothed's throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever convince
people that she was dead before my hands touched her, strangled by
another's clutch. One person only in the whole world would know and feel
how false this accusation was. And yesterday that one's trust in my
guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the deepest infamy
which could befall me. But to-day there had settled over that once
innocent spirit, a cloud of too impenetrable a nature for any light to
struggle to and fro between us.

I could not contemplate that cloud. I could not dwell upon her misery, or
upon the revulsion of feeling which follows such impetuous acts. And it
had been an impetuous act—the result of one of her rages. I had been
told of these rages. I had even seen her in one. When they passed she was
her lovable self once more and very penitent and very downcast. If all I
feared were true, she was suffering acutely now. But I gave no thought to
this. I could dream of but one thing—how to save her from the penalty of
crime, a penalty I might be forced to suffer myself and would prefer to
suffer rather than see it fall upon one so young and so angelically
beautiful.

Turning to the officer next me, I put the question which had been burning
in my mind for hours: