Hand and Ring

till he saw whether this arrest was likely to end in trial. But he cannot forget he had been in Sibley on the fatal day, or that there may be someone who saw his interview with Miss Dare. When Byrd comes to him, therefore, and tells him he is wanted in Sibley, his first question is, ‘Am I wanted as a witness?’ and, even you have acknowledged, Mr. Ferris, that he seemed surprised to find himself accused of the crime. But, accused, he takes his course and keeps to it. Brought to trial, he remembers the curious way in which he crossed the river, and thus cut short the road to the station; and, seeing in it great opportunities for a successful defence, chooses Mr. Orcutt for his counsel, and trusts the secret to him. The trial goes on; acquittal seems certain, when suddenly she is recalled to the stand, and he hears words which make him think she is going to betray him by some falsehood, when, instead of following the lead of the prosecution, she launches into a personal confession. What does he do? Why, rise and hold up his hand in a command for her to stop. But she does not heed, and the rest follows as a matter of course. The life she throws away he will not accept. He is innocent, but his defence is false! He says so, and leaves the jury to decide on the verdict. There can be no doubt,” Hickory finally concluded, “that some of these circumstances are consistent only with his belief that Miss Dare is a murderess: such, for instance, as his scratching out her face in the picture. Others favor the theory in a less degree, but this is what I want to impress upon both your minds,” he declared, turning first to Mr. Ferris and then to Mr. Byrd: “If any fact, no matter how slight, leads us to the conviction that Craik Mansell, at any time after the murder, entertained the belief that Miss Dare committed it, his innocence follows as a matter of course. For the guilty could never entertain a belief in the guilt of any other person.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Ferris, “I admit that, but we have got to see into Mr. Mansell’s mind before we can tell what his belief really was.”

“No,” was Hickory’s reply; “let us look at his actions. I say that that defaced picture is conclusive. One day he loves that woman and wants her to marry him; the next, he defaces her picture. Why? She had not offended him. Not a word, not a line, passes between them to cause him to commit this act. But he does hear of his aunt’s murder, and he does recall her sinister promise: ‘Wait; there is no telling what a day will bring forth.’ I say that no other cause for his act is shown except his conviction that she is a murderess.”

“But,” persisted Mr. Ferris, “his leaving the house, as he acknowledges he did, by this unfrequented and circuitous road?”

“I have said before that I cannot explain his presence there, or his flight. All I am now called upon to show is, some fact inconsistent with anything except a belief in this young woman’s guilt. I claim I have shown it, and, as you admit, Mr. Ferris, if I show that, he is innocent.”

“Yes,” said Byrd, speaking for the first time; “but we have heard of people manufacturing evidence in their own behalf.”

“Come, Byrd,” replied Hickory, “you don’t seriously mean to attack my position with that suggestion. How could a man dream of manufacturing evidence of such a character? A murderer manufactures evidence to throw suspicion on other people. No fool could suppose that scratching out the face of a girl in a photograph and locking it up in his own desk, would tend to bring her to the scaffold, or save him from it.”

“And, yet,” rejoined Byrd, “that very act acquits him in your eyes. All that is necessary is to give him credit for being smart enough to foresee that it would have such a tendency in the eyes of any person who discovered the picture.”

“Then,” said Hickory, “he would also have to foresee that she would accuse herself of murder when he was on trial for it, and that he would thereupon withdraw his defence. Byrd, you are foreseeing too much. My friend Mansell possesses no such power of looking into the future as that.”

“Your friend Mansell!” repeated Mr. Ferris, with a smile. “If you were on his jury, I suppose your bias in his favor would lead you to acquit him of this crime?”

“I should declare him ‘Not guilty,’ and stick to it, if I had to be locked up for a year.”

Mr. Ferris sank into an attitude of profound thought. Horace Byrd, impressed by this, looked at him anxiously.

“Have your convictions been shaken by Hickory’s ingenious theory?” he ventured to inquire at last.

Mr. Ferris abstractedly replied:

“This is no time for me to state my convictions. It is enough that you comprehend my perplexity.” And, relapsing into his former condition, he remained for a moment wrapped in silence, then he said: “Byrd, how comes it that the humpback who excited so much attention on the day of the murder was never found?”

Byrd, astonished, surveyed the District Attorney with a doubtful look that gradually changed into one of quiet satisfaction as he realized the significance of this recurrence to old theories and suspicions. His answer, however, was slightly embarrassed in tone, though frank enough to remind one of Hickory’s blunt-spoken admissions.

“Well,” said he, “I suppose the main reason is that I made no attempt to find him.”

“Do you think that you were wise in that, Mr. Byrd?” inquired Mr. Ferris, with some severity.

Horace laughed.

“I can find him for you today, if you want him,” he declared.

“You can? You know him, then?”

“Very well. Mr. Ferris,” he courteously remarked, “I perhaps should have explained to you at the time, that