And Mr. Ferris, with a sudden gesture, disclosed to view the pile of silver coin he had been concealing.
The young detective shook his head but lost none of his seeming indifference. “That is one of the little anomalies of criminal experience that we were talking about this morning,” he remarked. “Perhaps the fellow was frightened and lost his head, or perhaps he really heard someone at the door, and was obliged to escape without reaping any of the fruits of his crime.”
“Perhaps and perhaps,” retorted Mr. Ferris, who was a quick man, and who, once settled in a belief, was not to be easily shaken out of it.
“However that may be,” continued Mr. Byrd, without seeming to notice the irritating interruption, “I still think that the tramp, rather than the humpback, will be the man to occupy your future attention.”
And with a deprecatory bow to both gentlemen, he drew back and quietly left the room.
Mr. Ferris at once recovered from his momentary loss of temper.
“I suppose the young man is right,” he acknowledged; “but, if so, what an encouragement we have received this morning to a belief in clairvoyance.” And with less irony and more conviction, he added: “The humpback must have known something about the murder.”
And the coroner bowed; commonsense undoubtedly agreeing with this assumption.
II
An Appeal to Heaven
Her step was royal—queen-like.
Longfellow
It was now half-past one. An hour and a half had elapsed since the widow had been laid upon her bed, and to all appearance no change had taken place in her condition. Within the room where she lay were collected the doctor and one or two neighbors of the female sex, who watched every breath she drew, and stood ready to notice the slightest change in the stony face that, dim with the shadow of death, stared upon them from the unruffled pillows. In the sitting-room Lawyer Orcutt conversed in a subdued voice with Mr. Ferris, in regard to such incidents of the widow’s life as had come under his notice in the years of their daily companionship, while the crowd about the gate vented their interest in loud exclamations of wrath against the tramp who had been found, and the unknown humpback who had not. Our story leads us into the crowd in front.
“I don’t think she’ll ever come to,” said one, who from his dusty coat might have been a miller. “Blows like that haven’t much letup about them.”
“Doctor says she will die before morning,” put in a pert young miss, anxious to have her voice heard.
“Then it will be murder and no mistake, and that brute of a tramp will hang as high as Haman.”
“Don’t condemn a man before you’ve had a chance to hear what he has to say for himself,” cried another in a strictly judicial tone. “How do you know as he came to this house at all?”
“Miss Perkins says he did, and Mrs. Phillips too; they saw him go into the gate.”
“And what else did they see? I warrant he wasn’t the only beggar that was roaming round this morning.”
“No; there was a tin peddler in the street, for I saw him my own self, and Mrs. Clemmens standing in the door flourishing her broom at him. She was mighty short with such folks. Wouldn’t wonder if some of the unholy wretches killed her out of spite. They’re a wicked lot, the whole of them.”
“Widow Clemmens had a quick temper, but she had a mighty good heart notwithstanding. See how kind she was to them Hubbells.”
“And how hard she was to that Pratt girl.”
“Well, I know, but—” And so on and so on, in a hum and a buzz about the head of Mr. Byrd, who, engaged in thought seemingly far removed from the subject in hand, stood leaning against the fence, careless and insouciant. Suddenly there was a lull, then a short cry, then a woman’s voice rose clear, ringing, and commanding, and Mr. Byrd caught the following words:
“What is this I hear? Mrs. Clemmens dead? Struck down by some wandering tramp? Murdered and in her own house?”
In an instant, every eye, including Mr. Byrd’s, was fixed upon the speaker. The crowd parted, and the young girl, who had spoken from the street, came into the gate. She was a remarkable-looking person. Tall, large, and majestic in every proportion of an unusually noble figure, she was of a make and possessed a bearing to attract attention had she borne a less striking and beautiful countenance. As it was, the glance lingered but a moment on the grand curves and lithe loveliness of that matchless figure, and passed at once to the face. Once there, it did not soon wander; for though its beauty was incontestable, the something that lay behind that beauty was more incontestable still, and held you, in spite of yourself, long after you had become acquainted with the broad white brow, the clear, deep, changing gray eye, the straight but characteristic nose, and the ruddy, nervous lip. You felt that, young and beautiful as she was, and charming as she might be, she was also one of nature’s unsolvable mysteries—a woman whom you might study, obey, adore, but whom you could never hope to understand; a Sphinx without an oedipus. She was dressed in dark green, and held her gloves in her hand. Her appearance was that of one who had been profoundly startled.
“Why don’t someone answer me?” she asked, after an instant’s pause, seemingly unconscious that, alike to those who knew her and to those who did not, her air and manner were such as to naturally impose silence. “Must I go into the house in order to find out if this good woman is dead or not?”
“Shure she isn’t dead yet,” spoke up a brawny butcher-boy, bolder than the rest. “But she’s sore hurt, miss, and the doctors say as
