DETECTIVE CALEB SWEETWATER MYSTERIES (Thriller Trilogy). Anna Katharine Green
mistress of the house was being attacked, and rivetting my eyes on those windows, I beheld the shade of one of them thrown back and a hand appear, flinging out something which fell in the grass on the opposite side of the lawn. Then the shade fell again, and hearing nothing further, I ran to where the object flung out had fallen, and feeling for it, found and picked up an old-fashioned dagger, dripping with blood. Horrified beyond all expression, I dropped the weapon and retreated into my former place of concealment.
“But I was not satisfied to remain there. A curiosity, a determination even, to see the man who had committed this dastardly deed, attacked me with such force that I was induced to leave my hiding-place and even to enter the house where in all probability he was counting the gains he had just obtained at the price of so much precious blood. The door, which he had not perfectly closed behind him, seemed to invite me in, and before I had realised my own temerity, I was standing in the hall of this ill-fated house.”
The interest, which up to this moment had been breathless, now expressed itself in hurried ejaculations and broken words; and Mr. Sutherland, who had listened like one in a dream, exclaimed eagerly, and in a tone which proved that he, for the moment at least, believed this more than improbable tale:
“Then you can tell us if Philemon was in the little room at the moment when you entered the house?”
As everyone there present realised the importance of this question, a general movement took place and each and all drew nearer as she met their eyes and answered placidly:
“Yes; Mr. Webb was sitting in a chair asleep. He was the only person I saw.”
“Oh, I know he never committed this crime,” gasped his old friend, in a relief so great that one and all seemed to share it.
“Now I have courage for the rest. Go on, Miss Page.”
But Miss Page paused again to look at her finger, and give that sideways toss to her head that seemed so uncalled for by the situation to any who did not know of the compact between herself and the listening man below.
“I hate to go back to that moment,” said she; “for when I saw the candles burning on the table, and the husband of the woman who at that very instant was possibly breathing her last breath in the room overhead, sitting there in unconscious apathy, I felt something rise in my throat that made me deathly sick for a moment. Then I went right in where he was, and was about to shake his arm and wake him, when I detected a spot of blood on my finger from the dagger I had handled. That gave me another turn, and led me to wipe off my finger on his sleeve.”
“It’s a pity you did not wipe off your slippers too,” murmured
Sweetwater.
Again she looked at him, again her eyes opened in terror upon the face of this man, once so plain and insignificant in her eyes, but now so filled with menace she inwardly quaked before it, for all her apparent scorn.
“Slippers,” she murmured.
“Did not your feet as well as your hands pass through the blood on the grass?”
She disdained to answer him.
“I have accounted for the blood on my hand,” she said, not looking at him, but at Mr. Courtney. “If there is any on my slippers it can be accounted for in the same way.” And she rapidly resumed her narrative. “I had no sooner made my little finger clean I never thought of anyone suspecting the old gentleman when I heard steps on the stairs and knew that the murderer was coming down, and in another instant would pass the open door before which I stood.
“Though I had been courageous enough up to that minute, I was seized by a sudden panic at the prospect of meeting face to face one whose hands were perhaps dripping with the blood of his victim. To confront him there and then might mean death to me, and I did not want to die, but to live, for I am young, sirs, and not without a prospect of happiness before me. So I sprang back, and seeing no other place of concealment in the whole bare room, crouched down in the shadow of the man you call Philemon. For one, two minutes, I knelt there in a state of mortal terror, while the feet descended, paused, started to enter the room where I was, hesitated, turned, and finally left the house.”
“Miss Page, wait, wait,” put in the coroner. “You saw him; you can tell who this man was?”
The eagerness of this appeal seemed to excite her. A slight colour appeared in her cheeks and she took a step forward, but before the words for which they so anxiously waited could leave her lips, she gave a start and drew back with, an ejaculation which left a more or less sinister echo in the ears of all who heard it.
Frederick had just shown himself at the top of the staircase.
“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said he, advancing into their midst with an air whose unexpected manliness disguised his inward agitation. “The few words I have just heard Miss Page say interest me so much, I find it impossible not to join you.”
Amabel, upon whose lips a faint complacent smile had appeared as he stepped by her, glanced up at these words in secret astonishment at the indifference they showed, and then dropped her eyes to his hands with an intent gaze which seemed to affect him unpleasantly, for he thrust them immediately behind him, though he did not lower his head or lose his air of determination.
“Is my presence here undesirable?” he inquired, with a glance towards his father.
Sweetwater looked as if he thought it was, but he did not presume to say anything, and the others being too interested in the developments of Miss Page’s story to waste any time on lesser matters, Frederick remained, greatly to Miss Page’s evident satisfaction.
“Did you see this man’s face?” Mr. Courtney now broke in, in urgent inquiry.
Her answer came slowly, after another long look in Frederick’s direction.
“No, I did not dare to make the effort. I was obliged to crouch too close to the floor. I simply heard his footsteps.”
“See, now!” muttered Sweetwater, but in so low a tone she did not hear him. “She condemns herself. There isn’t a woman living who would fail to look up under such circumstances, even at the risk of her life.”
Knapp seemed to agree with him, but Mr. Courtney, following his one idea, pressed his former question, saying:
“Was it an old man’s step?”
“It was not an agile one.”
“And you did not catch the least glimpse of the man’s face or figure?”
“Not a glimpse.”
“So you are in no position to identify him?”
“If by any chance I should hear those same footsteps coming down a flight of stairs, I think I should be able to recognise them,” she allowed, in the sweetest tones at her command.
“She knows it is too late for her to hear those of the two dead Zabels,” growled the man from Boston.
“We are no nearer the solution of this mystery than we were in the beginning,” remarked the coroner.
“Gentlemen, I have not yet finished my story,” intimated Amabel, sweetly. “Perhaps what I have yet to tell may give you some clew to the identity of this man.”
“Ah, yes; go on, go on. You have not yet explained how you came to be in possession of Agatha’s money.”
“Just so,” she answered, with another quick look at Frederick, the last she gave him for some time. “As soon, then, as I dared, I ran out of the house into the yard. The moon, which had been under a cloud, was now shining brightly, and by its light I saw that the space before me was empty and that I might venture to enter the street. But before doing so I looked about for the dagger I had thrown from me before going in, but I could not find it. It had been picked up by the fugitive and carried away. Annoyed at the cowardice which had led me to lose such a valuable piece of evidence through a purely womanish emotion, I was about to leave the