The Incendiary Part 46

"Your glove in your left hand?"

"As I remember it, yes. I forgot to mention the barking of the dog upstairs. When I got to the study door the barking was louder and the dog seemed to be pawing at the door inside. Smoke was streaming out through the keyhole and I could hear a loud crackling inside. I looked at my watch"--here Harry's delivery grew broken and he stuttered over the words--"I looked at my watch and saw that I had time to catch the 3:29. So I ran out the way I had come, slammed the door, knocked over some boys that were blocking up the alleyway, crossed Broad street and dove into the little pa.s.sage called Marketman's row, which opens at the other end opposite the door of the depot.

"The 3:29 train was just steaming out when I caught the last car. At Woodlawn I jumped off on the unused side of the station and crossed the meadows to my house. Dr. Whipple had just come and had been directed to my room. I doubt if even the servants knew of my departure and arrival."

There was a pause when Harry finished. He looked straight at s.h.a.garach, flush-cheeked and ashamed, but with all the Arnold boldness.

"You have left out the vital part of your story," said the lawyer, when it appeared that the witness had nothing more to add. "Why did you fly from a stream of smoke issuing through a keyhole?"

"There were two reasons, shameful both of them, but I ask you to remember that I had recently risen from a fever and that I was greatly excited at the time. In the first place, the image of the safe in that study had haunted me for days."

"Although you have testified that you did not know you were disinherited. Is that another lie?"

"No, sir; it is the truth. I had absolutely no knowledge of the terms of my uncle's will."

"Then why were you apprehensive? Why did the image of the safe in which it was guarded haunt you?"

"Because--because I feared what actually did happen. I feared that he had bequeathed my share of his property elsewhere."

"Go on."

"I knew that the destruction of the safe would set me back to my position as heir, would a.s.sure me $5,000,000. It could do me no harm. That idea flashed through me as I stood on the landing, with my hand on the k.n.o.b. And then my own position! I might be accused of setting the fire for that very purpose. This was the thought that led me to flee. I remember looking at my watch, as I said. The 3:29 train would place me in safety almost before the fire was under way."

"And as a matter of fact, you were back in Woodlawn almost before the first stream of water was played upon the burning building?"

"I reached there at 3:45."

"You didn't stop to liberate the dog?"

"No, sir."

"You didn't think it your duty to save property and life by checking the flames or at least giving the alarm?"

"No, sir."

"You simply wanted your uncle's money."

"I wanted my uncle's money."

The gathering indignation of the audience expressed itself at this avowal by a sharp, spontaneous hiss. But the prisoner only bit his lips. The officers rapped for order and Chief Justice Playfair arose.

"I cannot find it in my heart to rebuke this manifestation, unseemly though it be in a temple of justice. For I knew Benjamin Arnold for many years. His cheek at the age of nearly fourscore had the rosy flush of a boy's and his unimpaired vigor was a living attestation of the pure youth and honorable manhood through which he had pa.s.sed. He deserved a better return from his brother's son than the avaricious greed for his riches which the witness has confessed."

"Your honor," said Harry, "I have not made myself understood. It is not for me to parry your honor's rebuke. I have richly deserved it. I have been selfish and a seeker of my own pleasure. But it would be unjust to my better self, which is now struggling to the surface, if I did not disown the entertainment of such feelings now. I am on the stand under oath and I told you the simple truth about my motives at that critical moment."

"I find it hard," replied the chief justice, "to understand such a frame of mind. If you were present and consented to the fire, as you admit, by failing to check the flames or give the alarm, then it appears to me that you are morally if not legally a self-confessed accessory after the fact."

"The explanation can only deepen my blame, your honor. I itched for money at that time. Yet all that I received flowed from me faster than it came. I had exhausted my mother's income, trenched upon her credit, borrowed of my friends, and still I craved more. I was a victim of the pa.s.sion for games of chance."

"Then you were capable of the gravest crimes," said Chief Justice Playfair.

"The fact that the witness took the 3 o'clock train when the will was supposed to have been read at 2:30," said the district attorney, "seems to me evidence that he had not contemplated a crime in coming."

"I do not charge that he contemplated a crime when he started from the house," answered s.h.a.garach, promptly, "but I do charge that, finding an opportunity to hand, Harry Arnold, who by his own confession was present at the door of his uncle's study at the time this fire started, yielded to an evil impulse, ignited the loose papers lying about and fled."

"Harry Arnold has, indeed, been traced to the study door," retorted the district attorney, "but Robert Floyd was inside the room."

"Then we must bring Harry Arnold across the threshold," said s.h.a.garach, resuming the cross-examination.

"Did you not know when you entered the house that the safe was unopened, owing to Hodgkins' detention?"

"No, sir; I knew nothing about that. When I went I expected to meet Hodgkins there."

"Then what good would it do you to see your uncle's study burned if it contained only an empty safe?"

"I didn't know whether the will was in the safe or not."

"And you didn't know whether the will disinherited you or not?"

"No, sir."

"But, acting on the possibility that there might be a will there, which might disinherit you, you ran away and left the house to burn?"

"It was contemptible, I admit."

"Hadn't you met your mother that afternoon?"

"Not after she left Woodlawn."

"What time was that?"

"Before 2 o'clock."

"She left in a carriage?"

"Yes, sir; one of the family carriages."

"And arrived at your uncle's toward three?"

"She has told me so."

"Leaving there a little after three?"

"Yes, sir."

"She might have driven around, then, for fifteen minutes and returned by the Southern depot just in time to meet you?"

"She might have done so."

"And inform you of Hodgkins' detention?"

"She might have done so, but whether you believe me or not, I never saw my mother until she came home that evening."

"Or any messenger from her?"

"Or any messenger."

"Did you set the fire?"

"No, sir."

"Did Floyd set it?"

"I refuse to believe that he did."

"Then who did? It must have been one or the other of you two."

"Or both of them," whispered Inspector McCausland to John Davidson, but the marshal shook his head.

"It is a mystery I cannot solve," said Harry Arnold.

"Let us help you, then. You testified before that you never corresponded with Ellen Greeley?"

"Why should I correspond with the girl?"

"In order that she might sell you what information she could overhear about your uncle's will."

s.h.a.garach brought his face closer to Harry's and his eyes seemed to blaze like searchlights, illuminating the depths of the young man's soul.

"Will you kindly read that aloud?" The lawyer handed his witness a letter. Harry glanced it over curiously, then read: "'The peddler has not come for two days, so I send you this by a trustworthy messenger. As I wrote you in my last, the professor said in the study: "Harry gets his deserts." That was all I could hear. Only he and Mr. Robert talked for a long time afterward. The will is in the safe in the study. If I hear anything more I will let you know, and please send me the money you promised me soon.'"

"Whose handwriting is that?" asked s.h.a.garach.

"I never saw it before."

"It is unsigned, unaddressed and undated, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Presumably, then, a letter in which both sender and receiver desired to conceal their names?"

"Perhaps so. I cannot offer an opinion as to that."

"Don't you know that letter was written by Ellen Greeley to you?"

"No, sir; I never received such a letter."

"I am aware that you never received it. But you received the previous letters referred to in this case, did you not? You received the letter stating that 'Harry gets his deserts,' meaning obviously that he gets nothing, did you not?"

"No, sir; I have never received a shred of communication from Ellen Greeley."

"Do you know the peddler referred to in this letter?"

"No, sir."

At this point Mrs. Arnold, who had sat through each of the three previous days' sessions, arose hurriedly and pa.s.sed out. s.h.a.garach just caught a glimpse of a lady's back departing, but the vacant seat told its story. He paused in his examination of Harry. It was Mrs. Arnold who had put McCausland on Floyd's track, Mrs. Arnold who had stolen Harry's photographs from Jacob, Mrs. Arnold who had driven up to the house in a carriage, Mrs. Arnold who would naturally deal, through her servants, with a street vender calling at the house.

"A subpoena blank!" he cried suddenly to Aronson. His pen flew over the paper, filling in names and other details.

"Serve that at any cost," he said to his a.s.sistant, and Aronson smooched the ink, so eager was he to obey.

"You do not know the peddler?" said s.h.a.garach, taking up the cross-examination.

"No, sir."

"You never saw a peddler in a green cart that used to call at your house in Woodlawn during the month of June?"

"Not to my knowledge. Of course, there are peddlers everywhere and some of them have green carts."

"Wouldn't you regard it as a peculiar circ.u.mstance if a particular peddler began calling at your house and your uncle's house about the time your uncle made his will and stopped his visits after the fire?"

"I don't know that I should attach importance to that circ.u.mstance. It might be accidental."

"But he might also be a go-between."

"Between whom?"

"Between you and Ellen Greeley."

"I never conducted any intrigue of any kind with Ellen Greeley."

"Did you know the man who was captured here yesterday?"

"No, sir."

"Wasn't he the peddler referred to in Ellen Greeley's letter?"

"The letter you handed me? I do not know."

"Is this one of your lies or the truth?"

"This is the truth."

"How are we to distinguish between your lying and truth-telling?"

Harry was silent.

"The only means of distinction thus far has been our own superior proof of the facts."