DETECTIVE CALEB SWEETWATER MYSTERIES (Thriller Trilogy). Anna Katharine Green
quietly persisted. “I can easily mingle with the crowd.”
He said not another word against it. Miss Page was under pay in his house, but for the last few weeks no one had undertaken to contradict her. In the interval since her first appearance on the porch, she had exchanged the light dress in which she had danced at the ball, for a darker and more serviceable one, and perhaps this token of her determination may have had its influence in silencing him. He joined the crowd, and together they moved down-hill. This was too much for the servants of the house. One by one they too left the house till it stood absolutely empty. Jerry snuffed out the candles and shut the front door, but the side entrance stood wide open, and into this entrance, as the last footstep died out on the hillside, passed a slight and resolute figure. It was that of the musician who had questioned Miss Page’s attractions.
Chapter II.
One Night’s Work
Sutherlandtown was a seaport. The village, which was a small one, consisted of one long street and numerous cross streets running down from the hillside and ending on the wharves. On one of the corners thus made, stood the Webb house, with its front door on the main street and its side door on one of the hillside lanes. As the group of men and boys who had been in search of Mr. Sutherland entered this last-mentioned lane, they could pick out this house from all the others, as it was the only one in which a light was still burning. Mr. Sutherland lost no time in entering upon the scene of tragedy. As his imposing figure emerged from the darkness and paused on the outskirts of the crowd that was blocking up every entrance to the house, a murmur of welcome went up, after which a way was made for him to the front door.
But before he could enter, some one plucked him by the sleeve.
“Look up!” whispered a voice into his ear.
He did so, and saw a woman’s body hanging half out of an upper window. It hung limp, and the sight made him sick, notwithstanding his threescore years of experience.
“Who’s that?” he cried. “That’s not Agatha Webb.”
“No, that’s Batsy, the cook. She’s dead as well as her mistress. We left her where we found her for the coroner to see.”
“But this is horrible,” murmured Mr. Sutherland. “Has there been a butcher here?”
As he uttered these words, he felt another quick pressure on his arm. Looking down, he saw leaning against him the form of a young woman, but before he could address her she had started upright again and was moving on with the throng. It was Miss Page.
“It was the sight of this woman hanging from the window which first drew attention to the house,” volunteered a man who was standing as a sort of guardian at the main gateway. “Some of the sailors’ wives who had been to the wharves to see their husbands off on the ship that sailed at daybreak, saw it as they came up the lane on their way home, and gave the alarm. Without that we might not have known to this hour what had happened.”
“But Mrs. Webb?”
“Come in and see.”
There was a board fence about the simple yard within which stood the humble house forever after to be pointed out as the scene of Sutherlandtown’s most heart-rending tragedy. In this fence was a gate, and through this gate now passed Mr. Sutherland, followed by his would-be companion, Miss Page. A path bordered by lilac bushes led up to the house, the door of which stood wide open. As soon as Mr. Sutherland entered upon this path a man approached him from the doorway. It was Amos Fenton, the constable.
“Ah, Mr. Sutherland,” said he, “sad business, a very sad business! But what little girl have you there?”
“This is Miss Page, my housekeeper’s niece. She would come.
Inquisitiveness the cause. I do not approve of it.”
“Miss Page must remain on the doorstep. We allow no one inside excepting yourself,” he said respectfully, in recognition of the fact that nothing of importance was ever undertaken in Sutherlandtown without the presence of Mr. Sutherland.
Miss Page curtsied, looking so bewitching in the fresh morning light that the tough old constable scratched his chin in grudging admiration. But he did not reconsider his determination. Seeing this, she accepted her defeat gracefully, and moved aside to where the bushes offered her more or less protection from the curiosity of those about her. Meanwhile Mr. Sutherland had stepped into the house.
He found himself in a small hall with a staircase in front and an open door at the left. On the threshold of this open door a man stood, who at sight of him doffed his hat. Passing by this man, Mr. Sutherland entered the room beyond. A table spread with eatables met his view, beside which, in an attitude which struck him at the moment as peculiar, sat Philemon Webb, the well-known master of the house.
Astonished at seeing his old friend in this room and in such a position, he was about to address him, when Mr. Fenton stopped him.
“Wait!” said he. “Take a look at poor Philemon before you disturb him. When we broke into the house a half-hour ago he was sitting just as you see him now, and we have let him be for reasons you can easily appreciate. Examine him closely, Mr. Sutherland; he won’t notice it.”
“But what ails him? Why does he sit crouched against the table? Is he hurt too?”
“No; look at his eyes.”
Mr. Sutherland stooped and pushed aside the long grey locks that half concealed the countenance of his aged friend.
“Why,” he cried, startled, “they are closed! He isn’t dead?”
“No, he is asleep.”
“Asleep?”
“Yes. He was asleep when we came in and he is asleep yet. Some of the neighbours wanted to wake him, but I would not let them. His wits are not strong enough to bear a sudden shock.”
“No, no, poor Philemon! But that he should sit sleeping here while she—But what do these bottles mean and this parade of supper in a room they were not accustomed to eat in?”
“We don’t know. It has not been eaten, you see. He has swallowed a glass of port, but that is all. The other glasses have had no wine in them, nor have the victuals been touched.”
“Seats set for three and only one occupied,” murmured Mr. Sutherland.
“Strange! Could he have expected guests?”
“It looks like it. I didn’t know that his wife allowed him such privileges; but she was always too good to him, and I fear has paid for it with her life.”
“Nonsense! he never killed her. Had his love been anything short of the worship it was, he stood in too much awe of her to lift his hand against her, even in his most demented moments.”
“I don’t trust men of uncertain wits,” returned the other. “You have not noticed everything that is to be seen in this room.”
Mr. Sutherland, recalled to himself by these words, looked quickly about him. With the exception of the table and what was on and by it there was nothing else in the room. Naturally his glance returned to Philemon Webb.
“I don’t see anything but this poor sleeping man,” he began.
“Look at his sleeve.”
Mr. Sutherland, with a start, again bent down. The arm of his old friend lay crooked upon the table, and on its blue cotton sleeve there was a smear which might have been wine, but which was—blood.
As Mr. Sutherland became assured of this, he turned slightly pale and looked inquiringly at the two men who were intently watching him.
“This is bad,” said he. “Any other marks of blood below stairs?”