DETECTIVE CALEB SWEETWATER MYSTERIES (Thriller Trilogy). Anna Katharine Green
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 Amabel Page!” cried Mr. Fenton, with natural surprise.
“Yes, I do; and I am glad it is you who have named her.”
Chapter XVII.
The Slippers, the Flower, and What Sweetwater Made of Them
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