Agatha Webb (10 page)

"Tut, tut!" was her contemptuous reply. "Do you consider me a
child? Do I look like a babbling infant, Frederick?"

Her face, which had been lifted to his in saying this, was so
illumined, both by her smile, which was strangely enchanting for
one so evil, and by the moon-light, which so etherialises all that
it touches, that he found himself forced to recall that other
purer, truer face he had left at the honeysuckle porch to keep
down a last wild impulse toward her, which would have been his
undoing, both in this world and the next, as he knew.

"Or do I look simply like a woman?" she went on, seeing the
impression she had made, and playing upon it. "A woman who
understands herself and you and all the secret perils of the game
we are both playing? If I am a child, treat me as a child; but if
I am a woman—"

"Stand out of my way!" he cried, catching up his valise and
striding furiously by her. "Woman or child, know that I will not
be your plaything to be damned in this world and in the next."

"Are you bound for the city of destruction?" she laughed, not
moving, but showing such confidence in her power to hold him back
that he stopped in spite of himself. "If so, you are taking the
direct road there and have only to hasten. But you had better
remain in your father's house; even if you are something of a
prisoner there, like my very insignificant self. The outcome will
be more satisfactory, even if you have to share your future with
me."

"And what course will you take," he asked, pausing with his hand
on the fence, "if I decide to choose destruction without you,
rather than perdition with you?"

"What course? Why, I shall tell Dr. Talbot just enough to show you
to be as desirable a witness in the impending inquest as myself.
The result I leave to your judgment. But you will not drive me to
this extremity. You will come back and—"

"Woman, I will never come back. I shall have to dare your worst in
a week and will begin by daring you now. I—"

But he did not leap the fence, though he made a move to do so, for
at that moment a party of men came hurrying by on the lower road,
one of whom was heard to say:

"I will bet my head that we will put our hand on Agatha Webb's
murderer to-night. The man who shoves twenty-dollar bills around
so heedlessly should not wear a beard so long it leads to
detection."

It was the coroner, the constable, Knapp, and Abel on their way to
the forest road on which lived John and James Zabel.

Frederick and Amabel confronted each other, and after a moment's
silence returned as if by a common impulse towards the house.

"What have they got in their heads?" queried she. "Whatever it is,
it may serve to occupy them till the week of your probation is
over."

He did not answer. A new and overwhelming complication had been
added to the difficulties of his situation.

Let us follow the party now winding up the hillside.

In a deeply wooded spot on a side road stood the little house to
which John and James Zabel had removed when their business on the
docks had terminated. There was no other dwelling of greater or
lesser pretension on the road, which may account for the fact that
none of the persons now approaching it had been in that
neighbourhood for years, though it was by no means a long walk
from the village in which they all led such busy lives.

The heavy shadows cast by the woods through which the road
meandered were not without their effect upon the spirits of the
four men passing through them, so that long before they reached
the opening in which the Zabel cottage stood, silence had fallen
upon the whole party. Dr. Talbot especially looked as if he little
relished this late visit to his old friends, and not till they
caught a glimpse of the long sloping roof and heavy chimney of the
Zabel cottage did he shake off the gloom incident to the nature of
his errand.

"Gentlemen," said he, coming to a sudden halt, "let us understand
each other. We are about to make a call on two of our oldest and
most respectable townsfolk. If in the course of that call I choose
to make mention of the twenty-dollar bill left with Loton, well
and good, but if not, you are to take my reticence as proof of my
own belief that they had nothing to do with it."

Two of the party bowed; Knapp, only, made no sign.

"There is no light in the window," observed Abel. "What if we find
them gone to bed?"

"We will wake them," said the constable. "I cannot go back without
being myself assured that no more money like that given to Loton
remains in the house."

"Very well," remarked Knapp, and going up to the door before him,
he struck a resounding knock sufficiently startling in that place
of silence.

But loud as the summons was it brought no answer. Not only the
moon-lighted door, but the little windows on each side of it
remained shut, and there was no evidence that the knock had been
heard.

"Zabel! John Zabel!" shouted the constable, stepping around the
side of the house. "Get up, my good friends, and let an old crony
in. James! John! Late as it is, we have business with you. Open
the door; don't stop to dress."

But this appeal received no more recognition than the first, and
after rapping on the window against which he had flung the words,
he came back and looked up and down the front of the house.

It had a solitary aspect and was much less comfortable-looking
than he had expected. Indeed, there were signs of poverty, or at
least of neglect, about the place that astonished him. Not only
had the weeds been allowed to grow over the doorstep, but from the
unpainted front itself bits of boards had rotted away, leaving
great gaps about the window-ledges and at the base of the sunken
and well-nigh toppling chimney. The moon flooding the roof showed
up all these imperfections with pitiless insistence, and the torn
edges of the green paper shades that half concealed the rooms
within were plainly to be seen, as well as the dismantled knocker
which hung by one nail to the old cracked door. The vision of
Knapp with his ear laid against this door added to the forlorn and
sinister aspect of the scene, and gave to the constable, who
remembered the brothers in their palmy days when they were the
life and pride of the town, a by no means agreeable sensation, as
he advanced toward the detective and asked him what they should do
now.

"Break down the door!" was the uncompromising reply. "Or, wait!
The windows of country houses are seldom fastened; let me see if I
cannot enter by some one of them."

"Better not," said the coroner, with considerable feeling. "Let us
exhaust all other means first." And he took hold of the knob of
the door to shake it, when to his surprise it turned and the door
opened. It had not been locked.

Rather taken aback by this, he hesitated. But Knapp showed less
scruple. Without waiting for any man's permission, he glided in
and stepped cautiously, but without any delay, into a room the
door of which stood wide open before him. The constable was about
to follow when he saw Knapp come stumbling back.

"Devilish work," he muttered, and drew the others in to see.

Never will any of these men forget the sight that there met their
eyes.

On the floor near the entrance lay one brother, in a streak of
moonlight, which showed every feature of his worn and lifeless
face, and at a table drawn up in the centre of the room sat the
other, rigid in death, with a book clutched in his hand.

Both, had been dead some time, and on the faces and in the aspects
of both was visible a misery that added its own gloom to the
pitiable and gruesome scene, and made the shining of the great
white moon, which filled every corner of the bare room, seem a
mockery well-nigh unendurable to those who contemplated it. John,
dead in his chair! James, dead on the floor!

Knapp, who of all present was least likely to feel the awesome
nature of the tragedy, was naturally the first to speak.

"Both wear long beards," said he, "but the one lying on the floor
was doubtless Loton's customer. Ah!" he cried, pointing at the
table, as he carefully crossed the floor. "Here is the bread, and-
-" Even he had his moments of feeling. The appearance of that loaf
had stunned him; one corner of it had been gnawed off.

"A light! let us have a light!" cried Mr. Fenton, speaking for the
first time since his entrance. "These moonbeams are horrible; see
how they cling to the bodies as if they delighted in lighting up
these wasted and shrunken forms."

"Could it have been hunger?" began Abel, tremblingly following
Knapp's every movement as he struck a match and lit a lantern
which he had brought in his pocket.

"God help us all if it was!" said Fenton, in a secret remorse no
one but Dr. Talbot understood. "But who could have believed it of
men who were once so prosperous? Are you sure that one of them has
gnawed this bread? Could it not have been—"

"These are the marks of human teeth," observed Knapp, who was
examining the loaf carefully. "I declare, it makes me very
uncomfortable, notwithstanding it's in the line of regular
experiences." And he laid the bread down hurriedly.

Meantime, Mr. Fenton, who had been bending over another portion of
the table, turned and walked away to the window.

"I am glad they are dead," he muttered. "They have at least shared
the fate of their victims. Take a look under that old handkerchief
lying beside the newspaper, Knapp."

The detective did so. A three-edged dagger, with a curiously
wrought handle, met his eye. It had blood dried on its point, and
was, as all could see, the weapon with which Agatha Webb had been
killed.

"Gentlemen, we have reached the conclusion of this business sooner
than I expected," announced Knapp. "If you will give me just ten
minutes I will endeavour to find that large remainder of money we
have every reason to think is hidden away in this house."

"Stop a minute," said the coroner. "Let me see what book John is
holding so tightly. Why," he exclaimed, drawing it out and giving
it one glance, "it is a Bible."

Laying it reverently down he met the detective's astonished glance
and seriously remarked:

"There is some incongruity between the presence of this book and
the deed we believe to have been performed down yonder."

"None at all," quoth the detective. "It was not the man in the
chair, but the one on the floor, who made use of that dagger. But
I wish you had left it to me to remove that book, sir."

"You? and why? What difference would it have made?"

"I would have noticed between what pages his finger was inserted.
Nothing like making yourself acquainted with every detail in a
case like this."

Dr. Talbot gazed wistfully at the book. He would have liked to
know himself on what especial passage his friend's eyes had last
rested.

"I will stand aside," said he, "and hear your report when you are
done."

The detective had already begun his investigations.

"Here is a spot of blood," said he. "See! on the right trouser leg
of the one you call James. This connects him indisputably with the
crime in which this dagger was used. No signs of violence on his
body. She was the only one to receive a blow. His death is the
result of God's providence."

"Or man's neglect," muttered the constable.

"There is no money in any of their pockets, or on either wasted
figure," the detective continued, after a few minutes of silent
search. "It must be hidden in the room, or—look through that
Bible, sirs."

The coroner, glad of an opportunity to do something, took up the
book, and ran hurriedly through its leaves, then turned it and
shook it out over the table. Nothing fell out; the bills must be
looked for elsewhere.

"The furniture is scanty," Abel observed, with an inquiring look
about him.

"Very, very scanty," assented the constable, still with that
biting remorse at his heart.

"There is nothing in this cupboard," pursued the detective,
swinging open a door in the wall, "but a set of old china more or
less nicked."

Abel started. An old recollection had come up. Some weeks before,
he had been present when James had made an effort to sell this
set. They were all in Warner's store, and James Zabel (he could
see his easy attitude yet, and hear the off-hand tones with which
he tried to carry the affair off) had said, quite as if he had
never thought of it before: "By the by, I have a set of china at
the house which came over in the Mayflower. John likes it, but it
has grown to be an eyesore to me, and if you hear of anybody who
has a fancy for such things, send him up to the cottage. I will
let it go for a song." Nobody answered, and James disappeared. It
was the last time, Abel remembered, that he had been seen about
town.

"I can't stand it," cried the lad. "I can't stand it. If they died
of hunger I must know it. I am going to take a look at their
larder." And before anyone could stop him he dashed to the rear of
the house.

The constable would have liked to follow him, but he looked about
the walls of the room instead. John and James had been fond of
pictures and had once indulged their fancy to the verge of
extravagance, but there were no pictures on the walls now, nor was
there so much as a candlestick on the empty and dust-covered
mantel. Only on a bracket in one corner there was a worthless
trinket made out of cloves and beads which had doubtless been
given them by some country damsel in their young bachelor days.
But nothing of any value anywhere, and Mr. Fenton felt that he now
knew why they had made so many visits to Boston at one time, and
why they always returned with a thinner valise than they took
away. He was still dwelling on the thought of the depths of misery
to which highly respectable folks can sink without the knowledge
of the nearest neighbours, when Abel came back looking greatly
troubled.