“You are too squeamish for a detective,” the other declared. “Guess you’re kept for the fancy business, eh?”
The look Mr. Byrd gave him was eloquent. “Go on,” said he; “let us hear what lies behind your fifthly.”
“Love,” returned the man. “Locked in the drawer of this young gentleman’s table, I found some half-dozen letters tied with a black ribbon. I knew they were written by a lady, but squeamishness is not a fault of mine, and so I just allowed myself to glance over them. They were from Miss Dare, of course, and they revealed the fact that love, as well as ambition, had been a motive power in determining this Mansell to make a success out of his invention.”
Leaning back, the now self-satisfied detective looked at Mr. Byrd.
“The name of Miss Dare,” he went on, “brings me to the point from which we started. I haven’t yet told you what old Sally Perkins had to say to me.”
“No,” rejoined Mr. Byrd.
“Well,” continued the other, poking with his foot the dying embers of the fire, till it started up into a fresh blaze, “the case against this young fellow wouldn’t be worth very much without that old crone’s testimony, I reckon; but with it I guess we can get along.”
“Let us hear,” said Mr. Byrd.
“The old woman is a wretch,” Hickory suddenly broke out. “She seems to gloat over the fact that a young and beautiful woman is in trouble. She actually trembled with eagerness as she told her story. If I hadn’t been rather anxious myself to hear what she had to say, I could have thrown her out of the window. As it was, I let her go on; duty before pleasure, you see—duty before pleasure.”
“But her story,” persisted Mr. Byrd, letting some of his secret irritation betray itself.
“Well, her story was this: Monday afternoon, the day before the murder, you know, she was up in these very woods hunting for witch-hazel. She had got her arms full and was going home across the bog when she suddenly heard voices. Being of a curious disposition, like myself, I suppose, she stopped, and seeing just before her a young gentleman and lady sitting on an old stump, crouched down in the shadow of a tree, with the harmless intent, no doubt, of amusing herself with their conversation. It was more interesting than she expected, and she really became quite tragic as she related her story to me. I cannot do justice to it myself, and I shan’t try. It is enough that the man whom she did not know, and the woman whom she immediately recognized as Miss Dare, were both in a state of great indignation. That he spoke of selfishness and obstinacy on the part of his aunt, and that she, in the place of rebuking him, replied in a way to increase his bitterness, and lead him finally to exclaim: ‘I cannot bear it! To think that with just the advance of the very sum she proposes to give me some day, I could make her fortune and my own, and win you all in one breath! It is enough to drive a man mad to see all that he craves in this world so near his grasp, and yet have nothing, not even hope, to comfort him.’ And at that, it seems, they both rose, and she, who had not answered anything to this, struck the tree before which they stood, with her bare fist, and murmured a word or so which the old woman couldn’t catch, but which was evidently something to the effect that she wished she knew Mrs. Clemmens; for Mansell—of course it was he—said, in almost the same breath, ‘And if you did know her, what then?’ A question which elicited no reply at first, but which finally led her to say: ‘Oh! I think that, possibly, I might be able to persuade her.’ All this,” the detective went on, “old Sally related with the greatest force; but in regard to what followed, she was not so clear. Probably they interrupted their conversation with some lovers’ byplay, for they stood very near together, and he seemed to be earnestly pleading with her. ‘Do take it,’ old Sally heard him say. ‘I shall feel as if life held some outlook for me, if you only will gratify me in this respect.’ But she answered: ‘No; it is of no use. I am as ambitious as you are, and fate is evidently against us,’ and put his hand back when he endeavored to take hers, but finally yielded so far as to give it to him for a moment, though she immediately snatched it away again, crying: ‘I cannot; you must wait till tomorrow.’ And when he asked: ‘Why tomorrow?’ she answered: ‘A night has been known to change the whole current of a person’s affairs.’ To which he replied: ‘True,’ and looked thoughtful, very thoughtful, as he met her eyes and saw her raise that white hand of hers and strike the tree again with a passionate force that made her fingers bleed. And she was right,” concluded the speaker. “The night, or if not the night, the next twenty-four hours, did make a change, as even old Sally Perkins observed. Widow Clemmens was struck down and Craik Mansell became the possessor of the five thousand dollars he so much wanted in order to win for himself a fortune and a bride.”
Mr. Byrd, who had been sitting with his face turned aside during this long recital, slowly rose to his feet. “Hickory,” said he, and his tone had an edge of suppressed feeling in it that made the other start, “don’t let me ever hear you say, in my presence, that you think this young and beautiful woman was the one to suggest murder to this man, for I won’t hear it. And now,” he continued, more calmly, “tell me why this babbling old wretch did not enliven the inquest
