“Speak,” was the sole response he received.
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Ferris, “are you willing to tell me where you were when you first heard of the assault which had been made upon your aunt?”
“I was in my place at the mill.”
“And—pardon me if I go too far—were you also there the morning she was murdered?”
“No, sir.”
“Mr. Mansell, if you could tell us where you were at that time, it would be of great benefit to us, and possibly to yourself.”
“To myself?”
Having shown his surprise, or, possibly, his alarm, by the repetition of the other’s words, Craik Mansell paused and looked slowly around the room until he encountered Mr. Byrd’s eye. There was a steady compassion in the look he met there that seemed to strike him with great force, for he at once replied that he was away from home, and stopped—his glance still fixed upon Mr. Byrd, as if, by the very power of his gaze, he would force the secrets of that detective’s soul to the surface.
“Mr. Mansell,” pursued the District Attorney, “a distinct avowal on your part of the place where you were at that time, would be best for us both, I am sure.”
“Do you not already know?” inquired the other, his eye still upon Horace Byrd.
“We have reason to think you were in this town,” averred Mr. Ferris, with an emphasis calculated to recall the attention of his visitor to himself.
“And may I ask,” Craik Mansell quietly said, “what reason you can have for such a supposition? No one could have seen me here, for, till today I have not entered the streets of this place since my visit to my aunt three months ago.”
“It was not necessary to enter the streets of this town to effect a visit to Mrs. Clemmens’ house, Mr. Mansell.”
“No?”
There was the faintest hint of emotion in the intonation he gave to that one word, but it vanished before he spoke his next sentence.
“And how,” asked he, “can a person pass from Sibley Station to the door of my aunt’s house without going through the streets?”
Instead of replying, Mr. Ferris inquired:
“Did you get out at Sibley Station, Mr. Mansell?”
But the other, with unmoved self-possession, returned:
“I have not said so.”
“Mr. Mansell,” the District Attorney now observed, “we have no motive in deceiving or even in misleading you. You were in this town on the morning of your aunt’s murder, and you were even in her house. Evidence which you cannot dispute proves this, and the question that now arises, and of whose importance we leave you to judge, is whether you were there prior to the visit of Mr. Hildreth, or after. Any proof you may have to show that it was before will receive its due consideration.”
A change, decided as it was involuntary, took place in the hitherto undisturbed countenance of Craik Mansell. Leaning forward, he surveyed Mr. Ferris with great earnestness.
“I asked that man,” said he, pointing with a steady forefinger at the somewhat abashed detective, “if I were not wanted here simply as a witness, and he did not say No. Now, sir,” he continued, turning back with a slight gesture of disdain to the District Attorney, “was the man right in allowing me to believe such a fact, or was he not? I would like an answer to my question before I proceed further, if you please.”
“You shall have it, Mr. Mansell. If this man did not answer you, it was probably because he did not feel justified in so doing. He knew I had summoned you here in the hope of receiving such explanations of your late conduct as should satisfy me you had nothing to do with your aunt’s murder. The claims upon my consideration, which are held by certain persons allied to you in this matter”—Mr. Ferris’ look was eloquent of his real meaning here—“are my sole justification for this somewhat unusual method of dealing with a suspected man.”
A smile, bitter, oh, how bitter in its irony! traversed the firm-set lips of Craik Mansell for a moment, then he bowed with a show of deference to the District Attorney, and settling into the attitude of a man willing to plead his own cause, responded:
“It would be more just, perhaps, if I first heard the reasons you have for suspecting me, before I attempt to advance arguments to prove the injustice of your suspicions.”
“Well,” said Mr. Ferris, “you shall have them. If frankness on my part can do aught to avert the terrible scandal which your arrest and its consequent developments would cause, I am willing to sacrifice thus much to my friendship for Mr. Orcutt. But if I do this, I shall expect an equal frankness in return. The matter is too serious for subterfuge.”
The other merely waved his hand.
“The reasons,” proceeded Mr. Ferris, “for considering you a party as much open to suspicion as Mr. Hildreth, are several. First, we have evidence to prove your great desire for a sum of money equal to your aunt’s savings, in order to introduce an invention which you have just patented.
“Secondly, we can show that you left your home in Buffalo the day before the assault, came to Monteith, the next town to this, alighted at the remote station assigned to the use of the quarrymen, crossed the hills and threaded the woods till you came to a small hut back of your aunt’s house, where you put up for the night.
“Thirdly, evidence is not lacking to prove that while there you visited your aunt’s once, if not twice; the last time on the very morning she was killed, entering the house in a surreptitious way by the back door, and leaving it in the same suspicious manner.
“And fourthly, we can prove that you escaped from this place as you had come, secretly, and through a difficult and roundabout path over the hills.
“Mr. Mansell, these facts, taken with your reticence concerning a visit so manifestly of importance to the authorities to know, must strike even
