The House of the Whispering Pines (11 page)

"In the cause of your client!"

"Which is equally the cause of justice."

"Possibly. We'll search for the ring, Mr. Clifton."

"Meanwhile, will you cast your eye over these fragments of a note which
Mr. Ranelagh says he received from Miss Carmel Cumberland while waiting
on the station platform for her coming."

Taking an envelope from his pocket, Mr. Clifton drew forth two small
scraps of soiled and crumpled paper, one of which was the half of another
envelope presenting very nearly the following appearance:

As he pointed this out, he remarked:

"Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
as to the person addressed."

The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand, contained
but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words was
Adelaide
.

"I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before I
found those two bits," explained the young lawyer with a simple
earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed. "One
was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and the other
I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in the early
morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh's statement that
the '
Come!
' used in the partially consumed letter found in the
clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland and not to
Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this word was the
station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by death."

"You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland's handwriting?"

"If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
to have been written by Carmel Cumberland."

Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
carefully away.

"For a second time we are obliged to you," said he.

"You can cancel the obligation," was the quick retort, "by discovering
the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
undertake it."

He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
he failed somehow—else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.

"Well, we'll undertake that, too," promised the district attorney.

"I can ask no more," returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. "The
confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal his
lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him much
more highly than you do now."

The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of a
youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked very
thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed to raise
his head until the young man had vanished from the room and his place had
been taken by another of very different appearance and deportment. Then
he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to the prosecuting attorney
as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police department.

Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point of
ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical smile
could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many valuable
qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose were not likely
to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of his cheerful,
modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney, after eyeing him
for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly suggested:

"You have brought some credentials with you, I hope."

"Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it," he
added, with just a touch of pride.

"The letter is all right," hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it
over. "Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and
becoming reserve."

"Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new
theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we
have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know
about this case?"

"All that's in the papers."

"Nothing more?"

"Very little. I've not been in town above an hour."

"Are you known here?"

"I don't think so; it's my first visit this way."

"Then you are as ignorant of the people as they are of you. Well, that
has its disadvantages."

"And its advantages, if you will permit me to say so, sir. I have no
prejudices, no preconceived notions to struggle against. I can take
persons as I find them; and if there is any deep family secret to
unearth, it's mighty fortunate for a man to have nothing stand in the way
of his own instincts. No likings, I mean—no leanings this way or that,
for humane or other purely unprofessional reasons."

The eye of District Attorney Fox stole towards that of his brother
official, but did not meet it. The coroner had turned his attention to
the table again, and, while betraying no embarrassment, was not quite his
usual self. The district attorney's hand stole to his chin, which he
softly rubbed with his lean forefinger as he again addressed Sweetwater.

"This tragedy—the most lamentable which has ever occurred in this
town—is really, and without exaggeration, a tragedy in high life. The
lady who was strangled by a brute's clutch, was a woman of the highest
culture and most estimable character. Her sister, who is supposed to have
been the unconscious cause of the crime, is a young girl of blameless
record. Of the man who was seen bending over the victim with his hands on
her throat, we cannot speak so well. He has the faults and has lived the
life of a social favourite. Gifted in many ways, and popular with both
men and women, he has swung on his course with an easy disregard of the
claims of others, which, while leaving its traces no doubt in many a
humble and uncomplaining heart, did not attract notice to his inherent
lack of principle, until the horrors of this tragedy lifted him into
public view stripped of all his charms. He's an egotist, of the first
water; there is no getting over that. But did he strangle the woman? He
says not; that he was only following some extraordinary impulse of the
moment in laying his thumbs on the marks he saw on Miss Cumberland's
neck. A fantastic story—told too late, besides, for perfect credence,
and not worthy of the least attention if—"

The reasons which followed are too well known to us for repetition.
Sweetwater listened with snapping eyes to all that was said; and when he
had been given the various clews indicating the presence of a third—and
as yet unknown—party on the scene of crime, he rose excitedly to his
feet and, declaring that it was a most promising case, begged permission
to make his own investigations at The Whispering Pines, after which he
would be quite ready to begin his search for the man in the derby hat and
high coat-collar, whose love for wine was so great that he chose and
carried off the two choicest bottles that the club-house contained.

"A hardy act for any man, gentleman or otherwise, who had just strangled
the life out of a fine woman like that. If he exists and the whole story
is not a pure fabrication of the entrapped Ranelagh, he shouldn't be hard
to find. What do you say, gentlemen? He shouldn't be hard to find."

"
We
have not found him," emphasised the district attorney, with the
shortest possible glance at the coroner's face.

"Then the field is all before me," smiled Sweetwater. "Wish me luck,
gentlemen. It's a blind job, but that's just in my line. A map of the
town, a few general instructions, and I'm off."

Mr. Fox turned towards the coroner, and opened his lips; but closed them
again without speaking. Did Sweetwater notice this act of self-restraint?
If he did, he failed to show it.

A subtle knave; a finder out of occasions;
That has an eye can stamp and counterfeit
Advantages though true advantage never presents
Itself; A devilish knave!

Othello
.

A half hour spent with Hexford in and about the club-house, and
Sweetwater was ready for the road. As he made his way through the
northern gate, he cast a quick look back at the long, low building he had
just left, with its tall chimneys and rows of sightless windows, half
hidden, half revealed by the encroaching pines. The mystery of the place
fascinated him. To his awakened imagination, there was a breathless
suggestion in it—a suggestion which it was his foremost wish, just now,
to understand.

And those pines—gaunt, restless, communicative! ready with their secret,
if one could only interpret their language. How their heads came together
as their garrulous tongues repeated the tale, which would never grow old
to them until age nipped their hoary heads and laid them low in the dust,
with their horror half expressed, their gruesome tale unfinished.

"Witnesses of it all," commented the young detective as he watched the
swaying boughs rising and dipping before a certain window. "They were
peering into that room long before Clarke stole the glimpse which has
undone the unfortunate Ranelagh. If I had their knowledge, I'd do
something more than whisper."

Thus musing, thus muttering, he plodded up the road, his insignificant
figure an unpromising break in the monotonous white of the wintry
landscape. But could the prisoner who had indirectly speeded this young
detective on his present course, have read his thoughts and rightly
estimated the force of his purpose, would he have viewed with so much
confidence the entrance of this unprepossessing stranger upon the
no-thoroughfare into which his own carefully studied admissions had
blindly sent him?

As has been said before, this road was an outlying one and but little
travelled save in the height of summer. Under ordinary circumstances
Sweetwater would have met not more than a half-dozen carts or sledges
between the club-house gates and the city streets. But to-day, the road
was full of teams carrying all sorts of incongruous people, eager for a
sight of the spot made forever notorious by a mysterious crime. He noted
them all; the faces of the men, the gestures of the women; but he did not
show any special interest till he came to that portion of the road where
the long line of half-buried fences began to give way to a few scattered
houses. Then his spirit woke, and be became quick, alert, and persuasive.
He entered houses; he talked with the people. Though evidently not a
dissipated man, he stopped at several saloons, taking his time with his
glass and encouraging the chatter of all who chose to meet his advances.
He was a natural talker and welcomed every topic, but his eye only
sparkled at one. This he never introduced himself; he did not need to.
Some one was always ready with the great theme; and once it was started,
he did not let the conversation languish till every one present had given
his or her quota of hearsay or opinion to the general fund.

It seemed a great waste of time, for nobody had anything to say worth the
breath expended on it. But Sweetwater showed no impatience, and proceeded
to engage the attention of the next man, woman, or child he encountered
with undiminished zest and hopefulness.

He had left the country road behind, and had entered upon the jumble of
sheds, shops, and streets which marked the beginnings of the town in this
direction, when his quick and experienced eye fell on a woman standing
with uncovered head in an open doorway, peering up the street in anxious
expectation of some one not yet in sight. He liked the air and well-kept
appearance of the woman; he appreciated the neatness of the house at her
back and gauged at its proper value the interest she displayed in the
expected arrival of one whom he hoped would delay that arrival long
enough for him to get in the word which by this time dropped almost
unconsciously from his lips.

But a second survey of the woman's face convinced him that his ordinary
loquaciousness would not serve him here. There was a refinement in her
aspect quite out of keeping with the locality in which she lived, and he
was hesitating how to proceed, when fortune favoured him by driving
against his knees a small lad on an ill-directed sled, bringing him
almost to the ground and upsetting the child who began to scream
vociferously.

It was the woman's child, for she made instantly for the gate which,
for some reason, she found difficulty in opening. Sweetwater, seeing
this, blessed his lucky stars. He was at his best with children, and
catching the little fellow up, he soothed and fondled him and finally
brought him with such a merry air of triumph straight to his mother's
arms, that confidence between them was immediately established and
conversation started.

He had in his pocket an ingenious little invention which he had exhibited
all along the road as an indispensable article in every well-kept house.
He wanted to show it to her, but it was too cold a day for her to stop
outside. Wouldn't she allow him to step in and explain how her work could
be materially lessened and her labour turned to play by a contrivance so
simple that a child could run it?

It was all so ridiculous in face of this woman's quiet intelligence, that
he laughed at his own words, and this laughter, echoed by the child and
in another instant by the mother, made everything so pleasant for the
moment that she insensibly drew back while he pulled open the gate, only
remarking, as she led the way in:

"I was looking for my husband. He may come any minute and I'm afraid he
won't care much about contrivances to save me work—that is, if they cost
very much."

Sweetwater, whose hand was in his pocket, drew it hastily out.

"You were watching for your husband? Do you often stand in the open
doorway, looking for him?"