DETECTIVE CALEB SWEETWATER MYSTERIES (Thriller Trilogy). Anna Katharine Green
went up and the delicate curve of her lips was not without menace as she said:
“You hate me, Mr. Sweetwater. Do you wish me to tell these gentlemen why?”
The flush which, notwithstanding this peculiar young man’s nerve, instantly crimsoned his features, was a surprise to Frederick. So was it to the others, who saw in it a possible hint as to the real cause of his persistent pursuit of this young girl, which they had hitherto ascribed entirely to his love of justice. Slighted love makes some hearts venomous. Could this ungainly fellow have once loved and been disdained by this bewitching piece of unreliability?
It was a very possible assumption, though Sweetwater’s blush was the only answer he gave to her question, which nevertheless had amply served its turn.
To fill the gap caused by his silence, Mr. Sutherland made an effort and addressed her himself.
“Your conduct,” said he, “has not been that of a strictly honourable person. Why did you fail to give the alarm when you re-entered my house after being witness to this double tragedy?”
Her serenity was not to be disturbed.
“I have just explained,” she reminded him, “that I had sympathy for the criminal.”
“We all have sympathy for James Zabel, but—”
“I do not believe one word of this story,” interposed Sweetwater, in reckless disregard of proprieties. “A hungry, feeble old man, like Zabel, on the verge of death, could not have found his way into these woods. You carried the money there yourself, miss; you are the—”
“Hush!” interposed the coroner, authoritatively; “do not let us go too fast—yet. Miss Page has an air of speaking the truth, strange and unaccountable as it may seem. Zabel was an admirable man once, and if he was led into theft and murder, it was not until his faculties had been weakened by his own suffering and that of his much-loved brother.”
“Thank you,” was her simple reply; and for the first time every man there thrilled at her tone. Seeing it, all the dangerous fascination of her look and manner returned upon her with double force. “I have been unwise,” said she, “and let my sympathy run away with my judgment. Women have impulses of this kind sometimes, and men blame them for it, till they themselves come to the point of feeling the need of just such blind devotion. I am sure I regret my short-sightedness now, for I have lost esteem by it, while he—” With a wave of the hand she dismissed the subject, and Dr. Talbot, watching her, felt a shade of his distrust leave him, and in its place a species of admiration for the lithe, graceful, bewitching personality before them, with her childish impulses and womanly wit which half mystified and half imposed upon them.
Mr. Sutherland, on the contrary, was neither charmed from his antagonism nor convinced of her honesty. There was something in this matter that could not be explained away by her argument, and his suspicion of that something he felt perfectly sure was shared by his son, toward whose cold, set face he had frequently cast the most uneasy glances. He was not ready, however, to probe into the subject more deeply, nor could he, for the sake of Frederick, urge on to any further confession a young woman whom his unhappy son professed to love, and in whose discretion he had so little confidence. As for Sweetwater, he had now fully recovered his self-possession, and bore himself with great discretion when Dr. Talbot finally said:
“Well, gentlemen, we have got more than we expected when we came here this morning. There remains, however, a point regarding which we have received no explanation. Miss Page, how came that orchid, which I am told you wore in your hair at the dance, to be found lying near the hem of Batsy’s skirts? You distinctly told us that you did not go up-stairs when you were in Mrs. Webb’s house.”
“Ah, that’s so!” acquiesced the Boston detective dryly. “How came that flower on the scene of the murder?”
She smiled and seemed equal to the emergency.
“That is a mystery for us all to solve,” she said quietly, frankly meeting the eyes of her questioner.
“A mystery it is your business to solve,” corrected the district attorney. “Nothing that you have told us in support of your innocence would, in the eyes of the law, weigh for one instant against the complicity shown by that one piece of circumstantial evidence against you.”
Her smile carried a certain high-handed denial of this to one heart there, at least. But her words were humble enough.
“I am aware of that,” said she. Then, turning to where Sweetwater stood lowering upon her from out his half-closed eyes, she impetuously exclaimed: “You, sir, who, with no excuse an honourable person can recognise, have seen fit to arrogate to yourself duties wholly out of your province, prove yourself equal to your presumption by ferreting out, alone and unassisted, the secret of this mystery. It can be done, for, mark, I did not carry that flower into the room where it was found. This I am ready to assert before God and before man!”
Her hand was raised, her whole attitude spoke defiance and—hard as it was for Sweetwater to acknowledge it—truth. He felt that he had received a challenge, and with a quick glance at Knapp, who barely responded by a shrug, he shifted over to the side of Dr. Talbot.
Amabel at once dropped her hand.
“May I go?” she now cried appealingly to Mr. Courtney. “I really have no more to say, and I am tired.”
“Did you see the figure of the man who brushed by you in the wood? Was it that of the old man you saw on the doorstep?”
At this direct question Frederick quivered in spite of his dogged self-control. But she, with her face upturned to meet the scrutiny of the speaker, showed only a childish kind of wonder. “Why do you ask that? Is there any doubt about its being the same?”
What an actress she was! Frederick stood appalled. He had been amazed at the skill with which she had manipulated her story so as to keep her promise to him, and yet leave the way open for that further confession which would alter the whole into a denunciation of himself which he would find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet. But this extreme dissimulation made him lose heart. It showed her to be an antagonist of almost illimitable resource and secret determination.
“I did not suppose there could be any doubt,” she added, in such a
natural tone of surprise that Mr. Courtney dropped the subject, and Dr.
Talbot turned to Sweetwater, who for the moment seemed to have robbed
Knapp of his rightful place as the coroner’s confidant.
“Shall we let her go for the present?” he whispered. “She does look tired, poor girl.”
The public challenge which Sweetwater had received made him wary, and his reply was a guarded one:
“I do not trust her, yet there is much to confirm her story. Those sandwiches, now. She says she dropped them in Mrs. Webb’s yard under the pear tree, and that the bag that held them burst open. Gentlemen, the birds were so busy there on the morning after the murder that I could not but notice them, notwithstanding my absorption in greater matters. I remember wondering what they were all pecking at so eagerly. But how about the flower whose presence on the scene of guilt she challenges me to explain? And the money so deftly reburied by her? Can any explanation make her other than accessory to a crime on whose fruits she lays her hand in a way tending solely to concealment? No, sirs; and so I shall not relax my vigilance over her, even if, in order to be faithful to it, I have to suggest that a warrant be made out for her imprisonment.”
“You are right,” acquiesced the coroner, and turning to Miss Page, he told her she was too valuable a witness to be lost sight of, and requested her to prepare to accompany him into town.
She made no objection. On the contrary her cheeks dimpled, and she turned away with alacrity towards her room. But before the door closed on her she looked back, and, with a persuasive smile, remarked that she had told all she knew, or thought she knew at the time. But that perhaps, after thinking the matter carefully