Hand and Ring

on the subject. He is mightily cut up about it,” he again proceeded, as he found Mr. Ferris forebore to reply. “I am told he didn’t sleep a wink all night, but spent his time alternately in pacing the floor like a caged lion, and in a wild sort of stupor that had something of the hint of madness in it. ‘If my grandfather had only known!’ was the burden of his song; and when anyone approached him he either told them to keep their eyes off him, or else buried his face in his hands with an entreaty for them not to disturb the last hours of a dying man. He evidently has no hope of escaping the indignity of arrest, and as soon as it was light enough for him to see, he asked for paper and pencil. They were brought him, and a man stood over him while he wrote. It proved to be a letter to his sisters enjoining them to believe in his innocence, and wound up with what was very much like an attempt at a will. Altogether, it looks as if he meditated suicide, and we have been careful to take from him every possible means for his effecting his release in this way, as well as set a strict though secret watch upon him.”

A slight noise took place behind the screen, which at any other time Mr. Hickory would have been the first to notice and inquire into. As it was, it had only the effect of unconsciously severing his train of thought and starting him alertly to his feet.

“Well,” said he, facing the District Attorney with cheerful vivacity, “any orders?”

“No,” responded Mr. Ferris. “A run down to Albany seems to be the best thing for you at present. On your return we will consult again.”

“Very well, sir. I shall not be absent more than two days, and, in the meantime, you will let me know if anything important occurs?” And, handing over his new address, Hickory speedily took his leave.

“Well, Byrd, what do you think of him?”

For reply, Mr. Byrd stepped forth and took his stand before the District Attorney.

“Has Coroner Tredwell informed you,” said he, “that the superintendent has left it to my discretion to interfere in this matter if I thought that by so doing I could further the ends of justice?”

“Yes,” was the language of the quick, short nod he received.

“Very well,” continued the other, “you will pardon me, then, if I ask you to convey to Mr. Hildreth the following message: That if he is guiltless of this crime he need have no fear of the results of the arrest to which he may be subjected; that a man has interested himself in this matter who pledges his word not to rest till he has discovered the guilty party and freed the innocent from suspicion.”

“What!” cried Mr. Ferris, astonished at the severe but determined bearing of the young man who, up to this time, he had only seen under his lighter and more indifferent aspect. “You don’t agree with this fellow, then, in his conclusions regarding Mr. Hildreth?”

“No, sir. Hickory, as I judge, is an egotist. He discovered Mr. Hildreth and brought him to the notice of the jury, therefore Mr. Hildreth is guilty.”

“And you?”

“I am open to doubt about it. Not that I would acknowledge it to anyone but you, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because if I work in this case at all, or make any efforts to follow up the clue which I believe myself to have received, it must be done secretly, and without raising the suspicion of anyone in this town. I am not in a position, as you know, to work openly, even if it were advisable to do so, which it certainly is not. What I do must be accomplished under cover, and I ask you to help me in my self-imposed and by no means agreeable task, by trusting me to pursue my inquiries alone, until such time as I assure myself beyond a doubt that my own convictions are just, and that the man who murdered Mrs. Clemmens is someone entirely separated from Mr. Hildreth and any interests that he represents.”

“You are, then, going to take up this case?”

The answer given was short, but it meant the deliberate shivering of the fairest dream of love that had ever visited Mr. Byrd’s imagination.

“I am.”

Book II

The Weaving of a Web

XII

The Spider

“Thus far we run before the wind.”

In the interview which Mr. Byrd had held with Miss Dare he had been conscious of omitting one test which many another man in his place would have made. This was the utterance of the name of him whom he really believed to be the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens. Had he spoken this name, had he allowed himself to breathe the words “Craik Mansell” into the ears of this agitated woman, or even gone so far as to allude in the most careless way to the widow’s nephew, he felt sure his daring would have been rewarded by some expression on her part that would have given him a substantial basis for his theories to rest upon.

But he had too much natural chivalry for this. His feelings as a man got in the way of his instinct as a detective. Nevertheless, he felt positive that his suspicions in regard to this nephew of Mrs. Clemmens were correct, and set about the task of fitting facts to his theory, with all that settled and dogged determination which follows the pursuit of a stern duty unwillingly embraced.

Two points required instant settling.

First, the truth or falsehood of his supposition as to the identification of the person confronted by Miss Dare in the Syracuse depot with the young man described by Miss Firman as the nephew of Widow Clemmens.

Secondly, the existence or nonexistence of proof going to show the presence of this person at or near