Agatha Webb (16 page)

What she did say was in seeming explanation of her previous
sentence. "It was not the same old man I had seen on the doorstep,
and while I was looking at him I became aware of someone leaving
the house and passing me on the road up-hill. Of course this ended
my interest in what went on within, and turning as quickly as I
could I hurried into the road and followed the shadow I could just
perceive disappearing in the woods above me. I was bound,
gentlemen, as you see, to follow out my adventure to the end. But
my task now became very difficult, for the moon was high and shone
down upon the road so distinctly that I could not follow the
person before me as closely as I wished without running the risk
of being discovered by him. I therefore trusted more to my ear
than to my eye, and as long as I could hear his steps in front of
me I was satisfied. But presently, as we turned up this very hill,
I ceased to hear these steps and so became confident that he had
taken to the woods. I was so sure of this that I did not hesitate
to enter them myself, and, knowing the paths well, as I have every
opportunity of doing, living, as we do, directly opposite this
forest, I easily found my way to the little clearing that I have
reason to think you gentlemen have since become acquainted with.
But though from the sounds I heard I was assured that the person I
was following was not far in advance of me, I did not dare to
enter this brilliantly illumined space, especially as there was
every indication of this person having completed whatever task he
had set for himself. Indeed, I was sure that I heard his steps
coming back. So, for the second time, I crouched down in the
darkest place I could find and let this mysterious person pass me.
When he had quite disappeared, I made my own retreat, for it was
late, and I was afraid of being missed at the ball. But later, or
rather the next day, I recrossed the road and began a search for
the money which I was confident had been left in the woods
opposite, by the person I had been following. I found it, and when
the man here present who, though a mere fiddler, has presumed to
take a leading part in this interview, came upon me with the bills
in my hand, I was but burying deeper the ill-gotten gains I had
come upon."

"Ah, and so making them your own," quoth Sweetwater, stung by the
sarcasm in that word fiddler.

But with a suavity against which every attack fell powerless, she
met his significant look with one fully as significant, and
quietly said:

"If I had wanted the money for myself I would not have risked
leaving it where the murderer could find it by digging up a few
handfuls of mould and a bunch of sodden leaves. No, I had another
motive for my action, a motive with which few, if any, of you will
be willing to credit me. I wished to save the murderer, whom I had
some reason, as you see, for thinking I knew, from the
consequences of his own action."

Mr. Courtney, Dr. Talbot, and even Mr. Sutherland, who naturally
believed she referred to Zabel, and who, one and all, had a
lingering tenderness for this unfortunate old man, which not even
this seeming act of madness on his part could quite destroy, felt
a species of reaction at this, and surveyed the singular being
before them with, perhaps, the slightest shade of relenting in
their severity. Sweetwater alone betrayed restlessness, Knapp
showed no feeling at all, while Frederick stood like one
petrified, and moved neither hand nor foot.

"Crime is despicable when it results from cupidity only," she went
on, with a deliberateness so hard that the more susceptible of her
auditors shuddered. "But crime that springs from some imperative
and overpowering necessity of the mind or body might well awaken
sympathy, and I am not ashamed of having been sorry for this
frenzied and suffering man. Weak and impulsive as you may consider
me, I did not want him to suffer on account of a moment's madness,
as he undoubtedly would if he were ever found with Agatha Webb's
money in his possession, so I plunged it deeper into the soil and
trusted to the confusion which crime always awakens even in the
strongest mind, for him not to discover its hiding-place till the
danger connected with it was over."

"Ha! wonderful! Devilish subtle, eh? Clever, too clever!" were
some of the whispered exclamations which this curious explanation
on her part brought out. Yet only Sweetwater showed his open and
entire disbelief of the story, the others possibly remembering
that for such natures as hers there is no governing law and no
commonplace interpretation.

To Sweetwater, however, this was but so much display of feminine
resource and subtlety. Though he felt he should keep still in the
presence of men so greatly his superiors, he could not resist
saying:

"Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. I should never have
attributed any such motive as you mention to the young girl I saw
leaving this spot with many a backward glance at the hole from
which we afterwards extracted the large sum of money in question.
But say that this reburying of stolen funds was out of
consideration for the feeble old man you describe as having
carried them there, do you not see that by this act you can be
held as an accessory after the fact?"

Her eyebrows 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
over, she might remember some detail that would throw some extra
light on the subject.

"Call her back!" cried Mr. Courtney. "She is withholding
something. Let us hear it all."

But Mr. Sutherland, with a side look at Frederick, persuaded the
district attorney to postpone all further examination of this
artful girl until they were alone. The anxious father had noted,
what the rest were too preoccupied to observe, that Frederick had
reached the limit of his strength and could not be trusted to
preserve his composure any longer in face of this searching
examination into the conduct of a woman from whom he had so lately
detached himself.