Kitabı oku: «Within the Capes», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XVIII

TOM GRANGER had been in Eastcaster gaol about an hour, when Will Gaines came to see him.

Since the click of the lock that shut him in his cell as a murderer had sounded in his ears, a calmness and a peace almost akin to happiness had fallen upon his spirit. This may sound strange, but there are periods, in times of trouble and grief, when the soul is relaxed from its tension of pain, and quietude comes for the time being. Tom’s brain was as clear as crystal, and he reviewed his position with a keenness that surprised himself He saw that the evidence was strong against him – damningly strong. As he walked up and down his cell, thinking over all that the witnesses had said – and he seemed to remember every word – he felt as though he were shut in by a wall of evidence that he could never hope to break through. But, though realizing all this, he had none of that anxiety regarding it, that it would have seemed natural for him to feel; it was almost as though these things concerned another person.

So he walked up and down his cell, going over all that had passed in the squire’s office. Of a sudden, a flaw in a certain part of the evidence struck him; it was but a small thing, but it was sufficient to arouse a new thought within him. Then he stood quite still in the middle of the cell, looking down upon the floor, and sunk in meditation, for his mind was busy in following up point after point of this thought, as a hound follows up the scent of game that it has freshly started.

How long he stood there I do not know, but he was aroused at last by the opening of the door of his cell, and Will Gaines came in to him. Will did not say a word; neither did he look at Tom, but he flung his hat and cloak despondingly upon the table.

“Sit down, Will,” said Tom, “take that chair; I’ll sit here on the edge of the cot.”

“Thank’ee,” said Will, “I will sit down, if you don’t mind. I’m kind of tired and fagged out.”

“How did you leave mother and Susan?” said Tom, after a moment or two of silence had passed.

“Oh, pretty well. Of course, your mother is very troubled at what has occurred, but, on the whole, she bears it better than I could have hoped for. She believes that you’re innocent.”

“She’s right.”

Will heaved a sigh. “I hope she is,” said he.

“Thank’ee,” said Tom, a little grimly, and then the talk lapsed between them again.

“Tom,” said Will, breaking the silence, “your father has engaged me to act as your attorney in this matter. The Lord knows, I wish I had more experience. I haven’t always worked as hard as I might have done, and now, when it has fallen to my lot to have to defend the brother of the girl that I hope to marry from a charge of murder, it seems likely that I’ll have to pay a bitter price for all the time that I have wasted. However, I’ll go to Philadelphia to-morrow and see Mr. Fargio, and get him to take up your case. I’ve come to talk over the matter with you, Tom.”

“Wait a minute, Will. I have a question to ask you, first. Do you believe me guilty?”

Will Gaines looked fixedly out of the window of the cell, but he did not answer. Tom smiled a little sadly.

“I think I know how you feel about it, without the asking, Will,” said he. “Now, do you think that I’d have a man defend me who didn’t believe that I was innocent?”

“Of course; you’d have to have some one to defend you.”

“I don’t see that. If I really was guilty of this thing, it seems to me that I ought to be punished as the law calls for. However, that is neither here nor there, for I hope to make you believe in my innocence before you quit this cell.”

“I wish to Heaven you could,” said Will, but his tone was rather gloomy than hopeful.

“Well, I’ll have a try at it. In the first place, I’ll have to ask you whether you think that I’m the kind of man that would murder another in cold blood?”

“Of course I don’t believe that,” said Will.

“You don’t think that I’m capable of lying in wait for Isaac Naylor, and deliberately killing him – not in heat of passion, but with a cool hand?”

“Certainly not. You don’t think that I’d believe such a thing of you as that, do you?”

“Then, if I had killed him, I would have been in a rage, and hardly conscious of what I was doing?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, I think that I can easily convince you that I didn’t do it at all.”

“I wish you could,” said Will, again.

“Do you believe what I told you up home, about meeting Isaac Naylor, and fighting with him?”

Will nodded his head.

“If I’d killed him at all, I would have killed him then, and in that struggle, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. Now, Dr. Winterapple affirmed before the magistrate that only one blow had been given, and that that blow was immediately behind and under the right ear.”

Will was looking very earnestly at Tom. “I heard his evidence before the coroner’s jury,” said he.

“Well, I’m right, ain’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Where are your wits, man? How could I strike him in the back part of the head, and under the right ear, if I struck him while he was fighting me off, as he must have been doing under the circumstances? Look here; suppose you and I are facing one another, so – I have a club in my hand to strike you with; I couldn’t possibly reach you to strike you where Isaac received the blow that finished him. If I were to strike you a blow in a moment of fury, it would be on the top or on the left side of the head. It would be impossible to strike you on the right side, without I were left handed.”

“Tom,” said Will, “I hadn’t thought of that – what a fool I have been.”

“Well, I suppose you didn’t think of it,” said Tom, “but I don’t see that that makes a fool of you.”

“You’ve made a great point,” said Will; “I see now; of course you couldn’t.”

“Wait a bit,” said Tom, “you’re going too fast, now. Any one, except a friend, who wanted to believe in my innocence, would say that Isaac might have broken away from me, and have run. If I’d struck him while he was running away, I’d have given him just such a blow as killed him.”

“That’s true.”

“But, if he’d tried to run away from me, he’d have run in the beaten track, and not in the grass and briars along the roadside. Now, he was found lying in the grass just as he had fallen, and surely, it isn’t likely that if I had struck him down in the middle of the road, I would afterward have dragged him into the grass. My first instinct, after I had done the deed, would be to run away, and leave him lying where he was. He was sitting on the ‘big stone’ when he was struck, and he fell forward just where Ephraim Whiteley found him.”

So Tom ended and stood looking at Will. Will said nothing at first, but at last he spoke.

“Tom,” said he, drawing a deep breath, “I am more thankful to you than I can tell; you have lifted a great load off my mind. I don’t think that I ever fully believed that you were guilty of this thing, but, I was afraid – I was afraid. The evidence was strong against you – you did meet Isaac Naylor, according to your own confession, and you kept that meeting secret from every one. You had just seen Patty, and had heard all, and I know that you must have been half crazy with it. I believe in your innocence now, but the circumstances were very strong against you.”

“Yes; they were, Will,” said Tom; “you had good reason to suspect me; nevertheless, I own freely, I felt kind of cut up when I saw what you thought. Even this that I’ve just said to you, wouldn’t go for much, only that you are ready and anxious to believe me. It wouldn’t weigh a moment with a jury.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

Tom made no answer to this last speech; he took a turn or two up and down his cell, and then stopped suddenly in front of the other.

“You believe I’m innocent now, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Firmly?”

“Firmly.”

“And you won’t think that anything further that I may say to you’ll be for the purpose of throwing the blame off my own shoulders and upon those of another man?”

“No.”

“Then I believe I know who it was that did kill Isaac Naylor.”

“Who?” said Will, almost breathlessly.

Tom looked him in the eyes for a moment or two before he spoke.

“Edmund Moor,” said he, quietly.

For a time Will glared at him with wide-opened eyes and mouth. “Tom,” said he, at last, in a low voice, “what makes you say such a thing as that? What leads you to make so horrible an accusation against such a man as Mr. Moor?”

“That horrible accusation was made against me.”

“But the circumstances were strong against you.”

“I think the circumstances are strong against him.”

“I don’t see it.”

Tom sat down on the edge of the table facing the other. “Look here, Will;” said he, “suppose that a man bearing testimony against another accused of murder should give evidence that was faulty in nearly every point; wouldn’t your first thought be that he knew more of the real story than he was inclined to tell, and that he was willing to let the accused suffer for it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what Mr. Moor did; you didn’t hear his evidence before the magistrate, but I did, and what’s more, I remember every word of it. This is what he said: That he was riding out the turnpike for pleasure, and that he saw Isaac Naylor turn into Penrose’s road; that he stopped his horse to water it at the shallow beside the bridge; that he saw me run out of the mill road and up the turnpike, and that he did not know who I was; that he heard no sound of any kind to make him suspect that something was going wrong; that he thought nothing more about Isaac Naylor, but went along the turnpike without looking up the road where Isaac had gone. Now, Will, is there nothing that strikes you as strange in all that?”

“Well, no; I can’t see anything strange in it. It sounds straightforward enough to me.”

“It sounds straightforward enough, Will, but it won’t bear looking into. When a man invents a story, it may seem to be reasonable enough, but, you may depend upon it, it’s not sound in all it’s parts, and must give way somewheres. The first thing that struck me as strange in this was a small matter enough, but it set me to thinking. Mr. Moor’s horse was standing in the shallow beside the bridge when I ran out into the turnpike. Now, in thinking the matter over, it occurred to me that, if I was out riding for pleasure, and my horse was fresh from the stable, I wouldn’t stop within three quarters of a mile from home to water it; would you?”

Will was gazing fixedly into Tom’s eyes; he made no answer to the question, but he shook his head.

“That, as I say, was the first thing that struck me; it was a little thing, but it set me athinking, and I began to wonder why Mr. Moor should have stopped his horse. The day wasn’t warm enough to make it any pleasure to drive through a shallow; one wouldn’t think of doing such a thing on a cool autumn day. So I began turning things over and over in my mind and, after a while, the whole story went to pieces, like a card house when you take away one of the cards. Now, I think I can prove to you from Mr. Moor’s own evidence before the magistrate, that he was within three hundred yards of Isaac Naylor and me during the whole time that we were together, and that he saw all that passed between us. Mr. Moor said that he saw Isaac Naylor turn into the mill road. To do that, he must have been pretty well down the hill or he couldn’t have seen him for the trees; he couldn’t have been over five hundred yards away from him, could he?”

Will shook his head.

“Now, Isaac Naylor walked about two or three hundred yards down the mill road before he met me, and there’s where he was found the next morning – killed. While he walked that three hundred yards, Mr. Moor, on horseback, could easily have covered the five hundred yards between the spot from where he saw him to the place where the mill road opens into the turnpike, so that he could have come up to the opening of the road just about the time that Isaac Naylor met me. Now,” said Tom, patting the edge of the table upon which he was sitting to give force to that which he was saying, “is it reasonable that I could have talked to Isaac Naylor, have fought with him and have killed him, and then have run the three hundred yards to the turnpike while Mr. Moor sat on his horse watering it at the shallow? Is it reasonable, say?”

“No,” said Will, “it’s not.” He seemed half dazed with that which Tom was telling him, but Tom saw that he was following him, and that was all that he wanted.

“Now, here’s another point. According to this, he was within three hundred yards of the scene of the murder at the very time that the murder was being done, and yet, by his evidence, he didn’t hear a single sound. Now, Isaac Naylor called for help while I was fighting with him – and called twice, and yet Mr. Moor, though it is clear that he was so near to us, heard nothing of it.”

Will rose from his chair and began walking excitedly up and down the room. Tom watched him for a while in silence. “Have I made my meaning clear to you?” said he, at last.

“Clear? Yes – yes; of course you’ve made it clear.”

“I’ve more to say yet,” said Tom, “and when you’ll sit down and listen coolly, I’ll go on.”

Then Will sat down in his chair again without a word.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Mr. Moor said that when he had done watering his horse, he rode on up the turnpike. The horse wasn’t drinking when I saw it. I ran on up the road, but I stopped before I got to the crest of the hill, for my breath gave out. I walked the rest of the way, which was about half a mile, to the homestead. Now, I take it, a man on horseback could have passed me, even if I’d run all the way. But Mr. Moor didn’t pass me, and there was no sign of him when I turned into the lane; so he did not ride on up the pike as he said he did. Neither did he turn back home, for no man would turn back from a pleasure ride after he had gone only three quarters of a mile. Will, how many roads are there between Stonybrook bridge and father’s house?”

“Only one.”

“And that is – ”

“Penrose’s road.”

“Will,” said Tom, leaning forward, looking into the other’s eyes and speaking very slowly, “when I left Edmund Moor he rode up Penrose’s road.”

“Tom! Tom!” cried Will Gaines, springing to his feet, “this is incredible!”

“Incredible! Doesn’t it sound reasonable?”

“Yes, yes; only too reasonable!” Then he began walking up and down. Suddenly he stopped in front of Tom. “Who would have thought,” said he, “that such a quiet, dull-seeming fellow as you, Tom Granger, would have thought out all this for yourself!”

“I don’t see anything wonderful in my thinking the matter out, considering that my own life and the happiness of all belonging to me are concerned in my thinking. But, I haven’t done yet. According to my certain knowledge, Mr. Moor did not ride up the turnpike; therefore he must have turned up Penrose’s road, for there was no other. Now, if I’d killed Isaac Naylor, he’d found him lying there, even if he’d heard no sound to make him suspect anything. If he’d found Isaac Naylor alive and left him alive, one word from him would have been enough to have cleared me. He said no word, therefore he wished the blame to rest upon me; he wished the blame to rest upon me, therefore he had something that he wished to hide. Without he was concerned in the affair he would want to hide nothing. If he was concerned in it, he was concerned in it alone, for there was no one but him near enough to hear Isaac call for help; if there had been they would have come. Yesterday afternoon, when I came to Eastcaster in the stage, I saw Mr. Moor and Isaac Naylor looking out of Moor’s office window; if nothing had happened since, I don’t know that I would have thought anything of it, but, in looking back now, I tell you that there was something wrong between them; there was a look about them – the way in which they were standing, the expression of their faces, that makes me feel that I am right in what I say. When I ran out into the road after leaving Isaac Naylor, Mr. Moor’s face was as white as wax, now – ” here Tom paused abruptly and began walking restlessly up and down the cell. After a while he stopped and stood in the middle of the room. He looked out of the window and not at Will when he spoke again.

“Will,” said he, solemnly, “I don’t know what has come over me; I don’t know whether it’s the state of mind that I’m in or not, but I can see the way that Isaac Naylor was killed – at least, I think I can – as clearly as though I had second sight. God forgive me if I’m wrong, but this is how I see it in my mind’s eye. I don’t know why Mr. Moor was riding along the turnpike just at that time, but I believe that it was to see and speak to Isaac Naylor again. However that may be, he was riding along the pike, and came to the end of the mill road where it opens upon the highway. There he saw Isaac talking to me and he stopped, either because what he wanted to say to Isaac was to be said in private, or because he knew me and wanted to see what would come of our talk. He saw me attack Isaac and heard him call for help, but he didn’t come to him because he’d hoped I’d kill him. That was why he was so white when I saw him a minute or two later. When he saw me leave Isaac Naylor and run up the road, he backed his horse into the water so as to make it seem as though he was just giving it a drink. I don’t believe that he would have any settled plan for doing this; it would be his instinct to do it. When he saw that Isaac was about to escape after all, he rode up to where he was sitting on the rock. Maybe they exchanged a few words; maybe he just picked up the stake and struck him where he sat, half dazed. I guess his mind must have been all in a toss and ferment at what he had seen me about to do, and the thought flashed through him, why shouldn’t he finish what he had seen me begin? I would be the one suspected, for all the circumstances would point to me, and I had come within a hair’s breadth of doing the deed myself. After he had struck Isaac and saw him lying in the grass, he realized what he had done, then he turned and mounted his horse and rode away. I think that this is so, because there was only one blow given, and Dr. Winterapple said in his evidence that he didn’t believe that it killed him right away; if Moor had coolly intended to kill Isaac, he would have made sure of it. This is my notion of what happened; of course, I may be mistaken in it.”

Tom turned as he ended, and looked at Will; the other was gazing intently at him.

At last Will spoke: “I – I follow your thoughts, Tom. It all sounds reasonable enough, but I must have time to think it over. I – I can’t believe it, somehow.”

“I don’t wonder at that,” said Tom, “beside, it’s only my own notion of it. Some one did kill Isaac Naylor, and it is clear that he was killed soon after I left him, for he never got to Elihu Penrose’s house, and he was found dead just where I left him. It only remains now to find out who it was. In my opinion, the most likely one to have done it was Mr. Moor. We must set about finding out several things, and that I depend on your doing.”

“I’ll do all that I can,” said Will.

“Very well, then; we’ll throw aside all that I’ve said, as to my notion of how it was done, and set to work, with the point given that Mr. Moor might have been the one that did the murder. The first thing to find out, is whether he had cause for the act. If there was no cause, of course, everything falls to the ground. Who is Isaac Naylor’s lawyer?”

“White & Tenny, I think.”

“Then the first thing to find, is whether Mr. Moor was tangled in some business trouble with Isaac; can you do that?”

“I don’t know; I’ll try.”

“The next thing to find out, is whether Mr. Moor really was sick yesterday morning. If he was not sick, he didn’t take a ride for his health, and must have taken it on business. If he had any business, it concerned Isaac Naylor, for he followed Isaac, and went no where else, according to my notion. The third thing to do, is to find what time he got back home yesterday afternoon, and what he did after he came home. Each one of these things hangs on the other.”

Will sat in silence for a long time. At last he stood up. “Tom,” said he, and his tones were serious, almost solemn, “as I said before, all this is reasonable, and is wonderfully thought out I won’t say off-hand that I think Mr. Moor did kill Isaac Naylor, but I’ll say this, – I think he might have done it. I’ll see what I can find out from White & Tenny – that I can manage myself. As to Mr. Moor’s private movements, we’ll have to put some one on the track of them that’s used to hunting up evidence. When I was studying law with Mr. Fargio, in Philadelphia, he had a fellow named Daly, whom he employed in the case of Smithers vs. Black. He’s a clever hand at ferreting out this kind of evidence, and I’ll get him to run down here and see what he can make out of this. The only trouble with him, is that he drinks, but I guess I can contrive to keep him sober till we’ve found out all we want to know. And now I’ll have to leave you, Tom, for I must set about my part of the business. Though it’s hard for me to believe that Mr. Moor was concerned in this – I’ll say this, I don’t believe that you did it; you’ve convinced me that far. I’ll say, too, that your reasoning against Moor is very strong.”

“If you’ll wait a minute, Will, I’ll drop a line to Patty, and get you to take it to her,” said Tom. “Of course, you’ll keep secret all that’s been said between us. You may tell the home folks, but don’t let it go any further.”

“Of course, I won’t.”

Then, while Will walked up and down the floor of the cell, Tom sat down and wrote his letter to Patty. He represented his case very much as he had done to Will Gaines, and spoke cheerfully and hopefully of his position.

He did not tell her anything about Mr. Moor; he felt that it would be better not to do so, for her father might chance to see the letter, and it behooved them to keep the matter as quiet as possible.

Then he folded the letter and gave it to Will, who left the cell without a word, but with a firm grip of the hand at parting.