The House of the Whispering Pines (37 page)

"Fascinated, I stared at one glass, then at the other. Had either of her
hands trembled, I should have grasped at the glass it held; but not a
tremor shook those icy fingers, nor did her eyes wander to the right
hand or to the left. 'Adelaide!' I shrieked out. 'Toss them behind you.
Let us live—live!' But she only reiterated that awful word: 'Choose!'
and I dare not hesitate longer, lest I lose my chance to save her.
Groping, I touched a glass—I never knew which one—and drawing it from
her fingers, I lifted it to my mouth. Instantly her other hand rose. 'I
don't know which is which, myself,' she said, and drank. That made me
drink, also.

"The two glasses sent out a clicking sound as we set them back on the
stand. Then we waited, looking at each other. 'Which?' her lips seemed
to say. 'Which?' In another moment we knew. 'Your choice was the right
one,' said she, and she sank back into a chair. 'Don't leave me!' she
called out, for I was about to run shrieking out into the night. 'I—I
am happy now that it is all settled; but I do not want to die alone. Oh,
how hot I am!' And leaping up, she flung off her coat, and went gasping
about the room for air. When she sank down again, it was on the lounge;
and again I tried to fly for help, and again she would not let me.
Suddenly she started up, and I saw a great change in her. The heavy,
leaden look was gone; tenderness had come back to her eyes, and a human
anxious expression to her whole face. 'I have been mad!' she cried.
'Carmel, Carmel, what have I done to you, my more than sister—my child,
my child!'

"I tried to soothe her—to keep down my awful fear and soothe her. But
the nearness of death had calmed her poor heart into its old love and
habitual thoughtfulness. She was terrified at my position. She recalled
our mother, and the oath she had taken at that mother's death-bed to
protect me and care for me and my brother. 'And I have failed to do
either,' she cried. 'Arthur, I have alienated, and you I am leaving to
unknown trouble and danger,'

"She was not to be comforted. I saw her life ebbing and could do nothing.
She clung to me while she called up all her powers, and made plans for me
and showed me a way of escape. I was to burn the note, fling two of the
glasses from the window and leave the other and the deadly phial near her
hand. This, before I left the room. Then I was to call up the police and
say there was something wrong at the club-house, but I was not to give my
name or ever acknowledge I was there. 'Nothing can save trouble,' she
said, 'but that trouble must not come near you. Swear that you will heed
my words—swear that you will do what I say,'

"I swore. All that she asked I promised. I was almost dying, too; and had
the light gone out and the rafters of the house fallen in and buried us
both, it would have been better. But the light burned on, and the life in
her eyes faded out, and the hands grasping mine relaxed. I heard one
little gasp; then a low prayer: 'Tell Arthur never—never—again to—'
Then—silence!"

Sobs—cries—veiled faces—then silence in the courtroom, too. It was
broken but by one sound, a heartrending sigh from the prisoner. But
nobody looked at him, and thank God!—nobody looked at me. Every eye was
on the face of this young girl, whose story bore such an impress of
truth, and yet was so contradictory of all former evidence. What
revelations were yet to follow. It would seem that she was speaking of
her sister's death.

But her sister had not died that way; her sister had been strangled.
Could this dainty creature, with beauty scarred and yet powerfully
triumphant, be the victim of an hallucination as to the cause of that
scar and the awesome circumstances which attended its infliction? Or,
harder still to believe, were these soul-compelling tones, these
evidences of grief, this pathetic yielding to the rights of the law in
face of the heart's natural shrinking from disclosures sacred as they
were tragic—were these the medium by which she sought to mislead justice
and to conceal truth?

Even I, with my memory of her looks as she faltered down the staircase on
that memorable night—pale, staring, her left hand to her cheek and
rocking from side to side in pain or terror—could not but ask if this
heart-rending story did not involve a still more terrible sequel. I
searched her face, and racked my very soul, in my effort to discern what
lay beneath this angelic surface—beneath this recital which if it were
true and the whole truth, would call not only for the devotion of a
lifetime, but a respect transcending love and elevating it to worship.

But, in her cold and quiet features, I could detect nothing beyond the
melancholy of grief; and the suspense from which all suffered, kept me
also on the rack, until at a question from Mr. Moffat she spoke again,
and we heard her say:

"Yes, she died that way, with her hands in mine. There was no one else
by; we were quite alone."

That settled it, and for a moment the revulsion of feeling threatened
to throw the court into tumult. But one thing restrained them. Not the
look of astonishment on her face, not the startled uplift of Arthur's
head, not the quiet complacency which in an instant replaced the
defeated aspect of the district attorney; but the gesture and attitude
of Mr. Moffat, the man who had put her on the stand, and who now from
the very force of his personality, kept the storm in abeyance, and by
his own composure, forced back attention to his witness and to his own
confidence in his case. This result reached, he turned again towards
Carmel, with renewed respect in his manner and a marked softening in his
aspect and voice.

"Can you fix the hour of this occurrence?" he asked. "In any way can you
locate the time?"

"No; for I did not move at once. I felt tied to that couch; I am very
young, and I had never seen death before. When I did get up, I hobbled
like an old woman and almost went distracted; but came to myself as I
saw the note on the floor—the note I was told to burn. Lifting it, I
moved towards the fireplace, but got a fright on the way, and stopped
in the middle of the floor and looked back. I thought I had heard my
sister speak!

"But the fancy passed as I saw how still she lay, and I went on, after a
while, and threw the note into the one small flame which was all that was
left of the fire. I saw it caught by a draught from the door behind me,
and go flaming up the chimney.

"Some of my trouble seemed to go with it, but a great one yet remained. I
didn't know how I could ever turn around again and see my sister lying
there behind me, with her face fixed in death, for which I was, in a
way, responsible. I was abjectly frightened, and knelt there a long time,
praying and shuddering, before I could rise again to my feet and move
about as I had to, since God had not stricken me and I must live my life
and do what my sister had bidden me. Courage—such courage as I had
had—was all gone from me now; and while I knew there was something else
for me to do before I left the room, I could not remember what it was,
and stood hesitating, dreading to lift my eyes and yet feeling that I
ought to, if only to aid my memory by a look at my sister's face.

"Suddenly I did look up, but it did not aid my memory; and, realising
that I could never think with that lifeless figure before me, I lifted a
pillow from the window-seat near by and covered her face. I must have
done more; I must have covered the whole lounge with pillows and
cushions; for, presently my mind cleared again, and I recollected that
it was something about the poison. I was to put the phial in her
hand—or was I to throw it from the window? Something was to be thrown
from the window—it must be the phial. But I couldn't lift the window,
so having found the phial standing on the table beside the little flask,
I carried it into the closet where there was a window opening inward,
and I dropped it out of that, and thought I had done all. But when I
came back and saw Adelaide's coat lying in a heap where she had thrown
it, I recalled that she had said something about this but what, I didn't
know. So I lifted it and put it in the closet—why, I cannot say. Then I
set my mind on going home.

"But there was something to do first—something not in that room. It was
a long time before it came to me; then the sight of the empty hall
recalled it. The door by which Adelaide had come in had never been
closed, and as I went towards it I remembered the telephone, and that I
was to call up the police. Lifting the candle, I went creeping towards
the front hall. Adelaide had commanded me, or I could never have
accomplished this task. I had to open a door; and when it swung to behind
me and latched, I turned around and looked at it, as if I never expected
it to open again. I almost think I fainted, if one can faint standing,
for when I knew anything, after the appalling latching of that door, I
was in quite another part of the room and the candle which I still held,
looked to my dazed eyes shorter than when I started with it from the
place where my sister lay.

"I was wasting time. The thought drove me to the table. I caught up the
receiver and when central answered, I said something about The Whispering
Pines and wanting help. This is all I remember about that.

"Some time afterward—I don't know when—I was stumbling down the stairs
on my way out. I had gone to—to the room again for my little bag; for
the keys were in it, and I dared not leave them. But I didn't stay a
minute, and I cast but one glance at the lounge. What happened afterward
is like a dream to me. I found the horse; the horse found the road; and
some time later I reached home. As I came within sight of the house I
grew suddenly strong again. The open stable door reminded me of my duty,
and driving in, I quickly unharnessed Jenny and put her away. Then I
dragged the cutter into place, and hung up the harness. Lastly, I locked
the door and carried the key with me into the house and hung it up on its
usual nail in the kitchen. I had obeyed Adelaide, and now I would go to
my room. That is what she would wish; but I don't know whether I did this
or not. My mind was full of Adelaide till confusion came—then
darkness—and then a perfect blank."

She had finished; she had done as she had been asked; she had told the
story of that evening as she knew it, from the family dinner till her
return home after midnight—and the mystery of Adelaide's death was as
great as ever. Did she realise this? Had I wronged this lovely,
tempestuous nature by suspicions which this story put to blush? I was
happy to think so—madly, unreasonably happy. Whatever happened, whatever
the future threatening Arthur or myself, it was rapture to be restored to
right thinking as regards this captivating and youthful spirit, who had
suffered and must suffer always—and all through me, who thought it a
pleasant pastime to play with hearts, and awoke to find I was playing
with souls, and those of the two noblest women I had ever known!

The cutting in of some half dozen questions from Mr. Moffat, which I
scarcely heard and which did not at all affect the status of the case as
it now stood, served to cool down the emotional element, which had almost
superseded the judicial, in more minds than those of the jury; and having
thus prepared his witness for an examination at other and less careful
hands, he testified his satisfaction at her replies, and turned her over
to the prosecution, with the time-worn phrase:

"Mr. District Attorney, the witness is yours."

Mr. Fox at once arose; the moment was ripe for conquest. He put his most
vital question first:

"In all this interview with your sister, did you remark any discoloration
on her throat?"

The witness's lips opened; surprise spoke from her every feature.
"Discoloration?" she repeated. "I do not know what you mean."

"Any marks darker than the rest of her skin on her throat or neck?"

"No. Adelaide had a spotless skin. It looked like marble as she lay
there. No, I saw no marks."

"Miss Cumberland, have you heard or read a full account of this trial?"

She was trembling, now. Was it from fear of the truth, or under that
terror of the unknown embodied in this question.

"I do not know," said she. "What I heard was from my nurse and Mr.
Moffat. I read very little, and that was only about the first days of
the trial and the swearing in of jurors. This is the first time I have
heard any mention made of marks, and I do not understand yet what you
allude to."

District Attorney Fox cast at Mr. Moffat an eloquent glance, which that
gentleman bore unmoved; then turning back to the witness, he addressed
her in milder and more considerate tones than were usually heard from him
in cross-examination, and asked: "Did you hold your sister's hands all
the time she lay dying, as you thought, on the lounge?"

"Yes, yes."

"And did not see her raise them once?"

"No, no."

"How was it when you let go of them? Where did they fall then?"

"On her breast. I laid them down softly and crossed them. I did not leave
her till I had done this and closed her eyes."

"And what did you do then?"

"I went for the note, to burn it."

"Miss Cumberland, in your direct examination, you said that you stopped
still as you crossed the floor at the time, thinking that your sister
called, and that you looked back at her to see."

"Yes, sir."

"Were her hands crossed then?"

"Yes, sir, just the same."

"And afterward, when you came from the fire after waiting some little
time for courage?"

"Yes, yes. There were no signs of movement. Oh, she was
dead—quite dead."

"No statements, Miss Cumberland. She looked the same, and you saw no
change in the position of her hands?"

"None; they were just as I left them."

"Miss Cumberland, you have told us how, immediately after taking the
poison, she staggered about the room, and sank first on a chair and then
on the lounge. Were you watching her then?"