One of My Sons Part 42

That Leighton Gillespie had not been released after his conference with the District Attorney was proof that his way was not as clear before him as I had hoped. Yet I was positive that Mr. Gryce as well as Sweet.w.a.ter shared my belief in his innocence; and while this was a comfort to me, I found my mind much exercised by the doubt as to what the next turn of the kaleidoscope would call up in this ever-changing case.

I had not seen Underhill in days, and I rather dreaded a chance meeting. He did not like Leighton, and would be the first to throw contempt upon any mercy being shown him on account of his faithful attachment to his disreputable wife. I seemed to hear the drawling query with which this favourite of the clubs would end any attempt I might make in this direction: "And so you think it probable that a man--a man, remember, with a child liable to flutter in and out of his room at all hours--would leave a phial of deadly poison on his dresser and never think of it again? Not much, old man. If he laid it down there, which I doubt, he took it up again. Don't waste your sympathy on a cad."

Yet I did; and to such an extent that I took a walk instead of going home and hearing these imaginary sentences uttered in articulated words. I walked up Madison Avenue, and, coming upon a store which had a reputation for an extra fine brand of cigars, I went in to buy one.

Have you ever greatly desired an event which your common sense told you was most unlikely to happen, and then suddenly seen it wrought out before you in the most unforeseen manner and by the most ordinary of means? From the first night of the tragedy with which these pages have been full, I had wished for an interview with the old butler, without witnesses, and as the result of a seeming chance. But I had never seen my way clear to this; and now, in this place and in this unexpected manner, I came upon him buying fruit at a grocer's counter.

I did not hesitate to approach him.

"How do you do, Hewson?" said I, with a kindly tap on his shoulder.

He turned slowly, gave me a look that was half an apology and half an appeal, then dropped his eyes.

"How do you do, sir?" said he.

"Been buying oranges for the family?" I went on. "Startling news, this! I mean the arrest of Mr. Gillespie's second son. I never thought of him as the guilty one, did you?"

The old butler did not break all up as I expected. He only shook his head, and, taking up the bundle which had just been handed him, remarked:

"We little know what's in the mind of the babies we dandle in our arms," and went feebly out.

I laid down a quarter, took a cigar from the case, forgot to light it, and sauntered into the street with it still in my hand. I felt thoroughly discouraged, and walked down the avenue in a sort of black mist formed of my own doubts and Hewson's calm acceptance of the guilt attributed to Leighton. But suddenly I stopped, put the cigar in my pocket, and exclaimed in vehement contradiction of my own uneasy thoughts: "Leighton Gillespie is as guiltless of his father's death as of other charges which have been made against him. I am ready to stake my own honour upon it," and went immediately to my apartments, without stopping, as I usually did, at Underhill's door.

I found a young man waiting for me in the vestibule. He had evidently been standing there for some time, for he no sooner heard my step than he gave a bound forward with the eager cry:

"It is I, sir,--Sweet.w.a.ter."

He was a welcome visitor at that moment, and I was willing he should realise it.

"Come in; come in," I urged. "New developments, eh? Mr. Gillespie released, perhaps, or----"

"No," was his disappointing response as the door closed behind us and he sank into the chair I pushed forward. "Mr. Gillespie is still in detention and there are no new developments. But another day must not pa.s.s without them. I was witness to the sympathy you felt last night for the man who claimed the wretched being we saw before us for his wife; and, feeling a little soft-hearted towards him myself, I have come to ask you to lay your head with mine over this case in the hope that we two together may light upon some clue which will lead to his immediate enlargement. For I cannot believe him guilty; I just cannot.

It was one of the others. But which one? I don't mean to eat or sleep till I find out."

"And Mr. Gryce?"

"He won't bother. Last night was too much for him, and he has gone home. The field is clear, sir, quite clear; and I mean to profit by it. Leighton Gillespie shall be freed in time to attend his wife's funeral or I will give up the detective business and go back to the carpenter's bench and my dear old mother in Sutherlandtown."

x.x.xI

SWEEt.w.a.tER HAS AN IDEA

I was greatly interested. Taking out a box of cigars, I laid it before him on the table.

"Be free with them," said I. "If there is any help to be got out of smoke let us make use of it."

He eyed the cigars ruefully.

"Too bad," he murmured; "unfortunately, it does not work that way with me. Some people think better between whiffs, but smoking clouds my faculties, and I would be no friend to Mr. Gillespie if I took your cigars now. Free air and an undisturbed mind for Caleb Sweet.w.a.ter when he settles down to work. Smoke yourself, sir; that won't affect me; but draw the box to your side of the table and give me a rebuking look if my hand goes out to it before this subject is settled."

I did as he requested, but not to the point of taking a cigar. I could think without its aid as well as he.

"Now, sir," he immediately began, "you were the first man to enter upon the scene of crime. May I ask if you will be so good as to relate afresh and circ.u.mstantially your whole experience with Mr. Gillespie?

You cannot be too minute in your details. Somehow or somewhere we have missed the clue necessary to the clearing up of this case. You may be able to supply it. Will it bore you too much to try?"

"Not in the least. I am as anxious as yourself to get at the bottom of this business."

"Begin, then, sir. You won't mind my closing my eyes? I find it so much easier to identify myself with the situation when I see nothing about to distract me. And, sir, since I dread speaking when actively absorbed in this kind of work, will you pardon me if I simply raise my finger when I want a minute for reflection? I know I am a crank, and not much used to gentlemen's ways, but I appreciate kindness more than most folks, especially when it takes the form of respect paid to my whims."

I a.s.sured him I was only too ready to do anything which would serve to further the end we had in view; and all preliminaries being thus amicably settled he dropped his head into his hands and I began my tale in much the same language I have used in these pages. He listened without a movement while I spoke of Claire and of my entrance into the house, but his finger went up when I mentioned the appearance presented by Mr. Gillespie as he stood propping himself against the table in a condition of impending collapse.

"Was the house quiet?" he asked. "Did you hear no sneaking step in the halls or adjacent dining-room?"

"Not a step. I remember receiving the impression that this old gentleman and his grandchild were all alone in the house. One of the greatest surprises of my life was the discovery that there were servants in the bas.e.m.e.nt and more than one member of the family on the floors above."

"A discovery which leads to our first argument, sir. We have taken it for granted (and certainly we were justified in doing so) that Mr.

Gillespie knew whose hand poured out the poison he felt burning into his vitals. We have argued that it was this knowledge which led him to spend the final moments of his life in an extraordinary effort to settle the doubts of his favourite niece. But, sir, if he had had this knowledge, would he not have mentioned outright and without any circ.u.mlocution the name of the son he had finally settled upon as the guilty one, rather than have made use of the same vague phrase which had been his torment and hers, ever since the hour he told her of the shadowy hand he had detected hovering over his gla.s.s of medicine? With the remembrance in your mind of the few words he left behind him, are you ready to declare that you find in them any proof of his knowing then, any better than before, which of his three sons had mingled poison with his drink? And, sir,--you are a lawyer,--does it follow from any evidence we have since received that he even positively knew it was one of these three men? Might not his fears and the haunting memory of that former attempt have so worked upon his failing faculties that he took for granted it was one of his sons who had made this last effort at poisoning him?"

"It is possible," I admitted, "but----"

"You don't place much stress on the suggestion."

"No," said I, "I don't. Anxious as I am that each and all of these young men should be relieved from the appalling charge of parricide, I saw too great a display of anxiety on his part for the right delivery of what he believed to hold the last communication he had to make to his favourite niece, for me to think these final words of his contained nothing more definite than a repet.i.tion of his former vague surmise. He was facing immediate death, yet all his thought, all his fast-ebbing strength, were devoted to the effort of making her know that he had not been mistaken in his former conclusion: that it _was_ one of his sons who sought his life, and that this son had now actually succeeded in poisoning him. That he did not proceed further and name which one, was due probably to a sudden loss of strength.

That he meant to say more than he did is evident from the _he_ which follows the four words we have been considering."

"True, true, but my argument holds; an argument which the difficulties of the case surely justify me in advancing. You say he would never have made such an effort to insure the safe delivery of words that were a mere repet.i.tion of a former statement. Yet what more were they in the unfinished condition in which we find them? Do you think he could have been blind to the fact that he had not succeeded in mentioning the name which alone could give value to his accusation, and make its safe delivery a matter of real moment to Miss Meredith?

Surely, sir, you do not believe his wits were so far gone that he regarded himself as having made his suspicions clear in those five words: _one of my sons he_?"

"No, I do not. Yet who can tell. Bright as his eye was, his faculty of memory as well as of observation may have left him. Witness how he tore off the blank edge of the paper, instead of the words he wished to send."

"I know."

Sweet.w.a.ter's tone was gloomy; a cloud seemed to have settled upon his newly risen hopes.

"Nevertheless," I now felt bound to admit, "I cannot quite bring myself to believe that he was so bewildered. On the contrary, I feel confident that he was in full possession of his faculties when he cast that dramatic glance upward, which, by a happy inspiration, I was led to interpret as meaning Hope. If we could penetrate this matter to its very core, I believe we should find the truth we seek either in those five words themselves or in the means he took of getting them to Miss Meredith. Have you ever thought, Sweet.w.a.ter, that we have not given all the attention we should to the latter fact?"

"Yes, sir." His hands had fallen from his face, and he spoke with volubility. "It has struck you, I see, as oddly as it has us, that it was a very strange thing for him to send into the street for a messenger when he had one right at his hand."

"Claire, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"But Claire is a child; the slip of paper to which he attached such importance was unsealed and he dreaded its falling into wrong hands.

Miss Meredith already knew his secret, but for him to proclaim openly that his death was due to the hatred or cupidity of one of his children would not be the act of a father who already, at the cost of so much misery to himself,--nay, as it proved, at the cost of his life,--had kept back from every ear save that of the one confidant of his misery, a knowledge of the fact that a previous attempt had been made upon his life."